Towards Mecca » Left 4 Dead 2 or 1.5?

While many loyal Valve customers were angry at the launch announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, placing the release date “only” one year after the release of the original, I was thrilled at the prospect of new content in my favorite zombie-bashing shooter!

In fact, I pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2, pre-loaded it, and played it the moment it was released. I sympathized with most of the points “the mob” was making, but the fact that I was excited about the upcoming product and was very willing to pay for it meant everything.

You see, the original Left 4 Dead was almost all my wife and I played for the first 6 months after its release. I find that 6 months of entertainment was very worth the measly 70$ I paid for the game. Seriously, that’s a lot of bang for your buck. That’s the argument I don’t sympathize with at all, the “it should be free” one.

Yes, I would have been very happy if it was free, but I also would love every restaurant to be an all-you-can eat buffet and that’s not happening either.
Yes, Left 4 Dead was light on content, but the re-playability more than made up for that.
Yes, it would have been great if Left 4 Dead 2 was a patch so as not to split thecommunity, but Valve obviously wanted to charge for it and a paid patch would have split the community anyway.
Yes, Team Fortress 2 has had over 100 free updates since its release and has evolved beautifully, but we can’t expect every Valve game to follow suite.

Sure, I do want all of the things the disgruntled were asking for, and it is in their full right to boycott and voice their opinions just as it is my right to disagree and be genuinely happy that Left 4 Dead 2 was released. Especially now that I have played it and saw how much of an improvement it is over the original.

Today I played the original Left 4 Dead for “old time’s sake” and it is just as fun as I remembered it, but the absence of certain items (mainly melee weapons) and special infected (mainly the Charger in versus mode) do leave me with a feeling that something’s missing. Still, I can easily see myself playing both games alternatively after the “new car smell” wears off the sequel. And please don’t flame me, but I would love to see the original game patched with all the new weapons and special infected too sometime in the future