People say Breen is sympathetic?

Ohhmygoodness I must have argued about this on the old site at least 5 different times. People really like the idea he was doing the best he could to buy time in a world where he genuinely believed fighting the Combine was impossible. I guess they were really starving for a sympathetic villain? But yeah his actions don't leave any room for sympathy, let alone his speeches and the dialogue between him and Vance. If anything the evidence points to him working with G-Man to cause the Black Mesa incident on purpose.

The only part of 2 that hit that high for me was the underside of the bridge

True, HL2 really deemphasized platforming as something necessary to win. I've always figured Valve tries to make games they want to play, and they fell out of love first with platformers, then with shooters. That's why there's been no HL3: they're into MOBAs now. I put together an almost entirely new PC and I'm still out here playing TF2 when I get the itch to shoot stuff; Deadlock really isn't my jam. Honestly at this point I figure even if we do get a HL3, it will have been taken in a direction I'm not really interested in.