Agreed, of course. Plenty of linear games are awesome.
I didn't say it was linear, I said it was too linear.
Anyway Deus Ex, while linear, had fairly open ended levels with different ways to approach each map.
Oh, and platforming in a FP game where you can't see your feet is generally idiotic.
Actually, my disdain for HL partly comes from only having played it after a bunch of FPSes which were much better than Half-Life. System Shock comes to mind.