Perhaps a better question would be “Is Half Life 2 the best FPS out there now?”. That one gets a resounding YES. Though there are some areas where HL2 could do better, overall I don’t think you’ll find a more immersive or addictive gaming experience around. Far Cry has a lot more blasting, certainly, and Doom 3 does a prettier world over all, but HL2 brings them al together in one package that grips you and drags you in. This is a sign of a good game in my book. The pacing is a tad slow in places, but overall, the positives far outweigh the (small) negatives and this is one game well worth scraping together the cash for.