KavazovAngel: As in, the game is so easy even a 2 year old kid can finish it on Hard difficulty. I've been playing through Portal and Half Life 2 + EP1/2 on hard this week...

... the difficulty is a joke, a blind person can easily finish the game on the hardest available difficulty.

Does it provide a challenge, or is everything just so simplified like all other Valve games?

pops117: I found the puzzles to be a tad bit too easy for my tastes, in return we get a gameplay adjusted to the needs of the story which isn't such a bad thing. But I felt they weren't as hard as some of the puzzles from Portal.

Taleroth: Adventure and puzzle games don't usually pride themselves on being challenges.

KavazovAngel: It is easier than Portal!? No way!

Thanks for the replies, won't be buying this after all.

pops117: It's longer and the puzzles way more diverse, it's just that you need to solve them in the way the developers designed them while in Portal you had some more liberties.
And did you play the HL+Portal games solely for the challenge they represented?

KavazovAngel: Not when I bought them. But lately my taste has been changing a lot, and now I want harder games... I guess I was spoiled by Starcraft 2's Brutal difficulty. :)

pops117: Did you consider modifying your skill.cfg (for Half-Life 2 in 'half-life 2\hl2\cfg\skill.cfg') so your opponents have ridiculously high health and damage points? :P

KavazovAngel: Not when I bought them. But lately my taste has been changing a lot, and now I want harder games... I guess I was spoiled by Starcraft 2's Brutal difficulty. :)

KavazovAngel: Well, that is not challenging, since the enemy is still the same, just with more hit points. He won't have a better AI or abilities. :p :)