Half-Life 2: Episode One

In an ideal world, this would've been the real ending to the main game, and also much, much shorter. Have the original G-Man scene as a fake-out where it seems everything's lining up to repeat the end of the first game. Then, bam, vortigaunts get in the way and you get one last chapter (or maybe just the back end of Dark Energy) racing down what's left of the citadel, getting the plot info, and fleeing on a razor train before ending in the same place as the real Episode One. For real, this episode feels almost totally superfluous. The tech's neat and I guess it's nice to have a bullet sponge ally who's not incompetent, but overall it has so little staying power. I don't think I particularly enjoyed any part of it. The commentary track also makes it clear just how badly playtester feedback ruined Alyx! (Not an indictment of playtesting as a concept, but of how Valve relates to players.)