Not many would call that actually playing.
To each their own, again.
I just finished another mod for HL 2. This time it was about 3 hour trek in the boots of Cpl. Adrian Shephard. The plot itself is fairly stupid, telling how Shephard was supposedly the one who prior to HL 2 events unleashed antlion upon the world as some kind of countermeasure for combine. Blah, there was no plot to speak, but you were sort of dragged through levels that had hardly anything to do with each other(the credits hinted that parts of them were actually recycled dm_ missions) and finally thrown to the Citadel to unlock some kind of neregy field keeping the antlions out of the world. Why they hadn't actually buried out by themselves was a mystery to me, but whatever.
Level design, however, was great and several levels had a nice use of space, not to mention themes that actually fit the HL 2 milieu and were still original in the context, like the ex-Soviet Nuclear Sub Base which was chockfull of zombines and the whole wintry theme that pervaded the three early episodes. Refreshing, although the actualy snow texture looked like recolored sand or rock. I was too busy shooting to notice it all that often though.
Voice acting was subpar, especially since the modders decided to use the old HL 2 characters instead of making a bunch of new ones whose voices would be justified. Now G-Man, Kleiner and folks just sounded akward.
Funny thing, this mod had a huge team and didn't entertainn me all that much, while the Ravenholm mod sported a couple of slavs and made a superbly compelling experience, even though they used the same thematic elements the original Ravenholm chapter did, with the exception of Combine presence in the town in the form of nasty ambushes.