First off, I'd like you to explain why it is that you believe your theories upon the Source engine, based on (assuming you did not download the code) complete speculation about screenshots and videos, should hold ANY water at all - much less authority over a Valve employee.

Second, I'd like you to explain your disposition to launch barrages of vague, uber-cynical tyrades in our direction every time somebody even mentions HL2.

I'm not convinced in the least that Valve would be predisposed, at least out of some malicious intent, to lie about their product. However, the publisher always has the big-name developers by the balls, and they have stretched the truth or beat around the bush about their game, but I'm convinced that would not be their intent under any other circumstances.

However, it seems half the internet has taken off about how they faked the hacking of their own source code (because every game company likes to announce potential complete failure rather than simply push back a f**king release date), whining about how the version they stole is subpar and (GASP) is unfinished, and that the HL2 engine is cardboard held together with duct tape. Not that you do (all of) those, Jinx, but such as it is, you stand on their side when you try to piss on an unreleased game that you, quite frankly, don't know s**t about.

Can you honestly make any factual case for HL2 multiplayer being trashy? When was the last time you played it? The fact that they haven't shown it means nothing - they didn't show the game itself for five years, but it was still there. Though to believe in HL2's existence a year or so ago would be a tremendous leap of faith, to suggest that Vivendi would allow them to ship without a functional multiplayer system is ridiculous.