Anyone playing Half Life 2?

[SomethingClever]

I was going to buy this game the second it came out... back in March. Needless to say, all the delays have soured the idea of buying it a bit. Also the fact that I have an unplayed copy of Doom 3 sitting on my desk, and a soon-to-be heavily played copy of San Andreas in my TV room.

So, has anyone actually played this? How does it stack up to the original?

FWIW, I loved the original... played through the entire game twice and got really into the multiplayer deathmatch online. I hear the new version doesn't have "normal" deathmatch, just CounterStrike, which is somewhat disappointing.