I don’t want to repeat everything I said in my review of the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, but there’s a lot to talk about.

The weather effects in the Hard Rain campaign are quite well done, and the hotel fire at the beginning of the first campaign actually makes you feel like you’re in a hotel fire – you feel the urge to run through as fast as you can to escape the flames, though they don’t actually ever cut off your path (at least not that I could tell).

There are two types of ammo that you can deploy: explosive, which stumbles special infected, and incendiary, which sets things on fire.  That’s the fun one

There are also laser sight upgrades, which increase your weapon’s accuracy.  They only apply to your currently equipped primary weapon, so if you change weapons you lose the upgrade.

As for the Infected, there are obviously the new Specials that I mentioned before – the Spitter, the Jockey, and the Charger – but there’s also a female version of the Boomer.  I haven’t confirmed this, but the word on the street is that the female Boomer can move while she, uh, vomits at you.  (She’s also supposedly louder, making her easier to locate.)

I mentioned the armored CEDA agents when I talked about the demo; there are also clowns (who make noise and attract more common infected), there are mudders (who crouch low to the ground and like to hide in muddy water), and there are guys in fireproof suits.

The new Scavenge game mode is extremely fun, and Survival and Versus are still just as awesome; Realism mode is extremely involving.  I was so immersed that I actually ducked in my chair when a Tank threw a chunk of concrete at me.

My only gripe thus far is that today when I logged on, my achievements had been reset (I had 20-some already).  It’s not too big a deal, but I guess that’s what happens during launch week.  Maybe there were some cheaters and Valve couldn’t tell who had cheated and who couldn’t.  I have confirmed that the reset was widespread, but I don’t know if it was global.

I’m going to echo Ars Technica’s review – Left 4 Dead 2 is well worth the money.

The official release time of L4D2 is 2.5 hours from now, but Valve intended to release it 3 hours early; at least, that’s true if you go by Pacific time.

So technically it’s 30 minutes late but 2.5 hours early still.  I think someone’s having trouble configuring the release:

At least, I’m pretty sure there aren’t seven editions of Left 4 Dead 2…

Edit: A few minutes later, there are still seven copies, but the date has been changed to Nov 16, 2009.  And of course the duplicates were removed just as I typed this.

Edit 2: And of course, now the single listing has Nov 17, 2009 listed as the release date.  They really shouldn’t do this stuff on a production server…

Edit 3: It ended up coming out just one hour “late”.  The nerd rage literally crashed Steam’s forums.  It was definitely worth the wait, though; I’ll write a post later this week about it.

There’s an article on IncGamers in which the author adds up all the money he and his wife have spent on World of Warcraft over the years, and then complains about how expensive it is.  Now, I’m not a fan of MMOs, but I happen to disagree with his conclusion, for one very important reason: cost per hour.

If we assume he and his wife each play World of Warcraft ten hours per week, then his $1700 over four years and eight months works out to $0.35 per hour of play time.

Let’s compare that to some other games.  You know those $50 games you play once and never look at again?  The ones where the whole game lasts 10 hours if you’re lucky?  Those cost upwards of $5 per hour.

So realizing this got me thinking.  How much have my favorite games really cost me?

Counter-Strike: Source cost me $19.99.  I’ve played countless hours, surely more than 200 hours.  Heck, just in the last two weeks I’ve played 14 hours.  If we pretend that’s accurate over three years, that’s just $0.02 per hour.  In reality, I used to play CS:S a lot more than I do now, so the cost is likely much lower.

I bought the Orange Box (with Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and TF2) for $49.99.  According to my Steam account stat tracking, I’ve played TF2 a total of 34.7 hours (half of that in the last two weeks).  I only played through Episode 2 once or twice; I’ll call it 10 hours (though it may have been more like 12).  Portal, while entertaining, probably only racked up 8 hours of gameplay.  So the Orange Box has cost me $0.91 per hour, but as I ramp up my TF2 gameplay that cost will slowly go down.

I preordered Left 4 Dead for $44.99 last year.  Steam tells me I have a total playtime of 96.25 hours, putting its cost at $0.47 per hour.

My dad bought StarCraft for me years ago.  I’d guess he paid $49.99, because the game was still fairly new.  That was over a decade ago.  I have played a lot of StarCraft.  During middle and high school, I’m sure I played something like 8 hours a week (more during the summer, less during school).  Looking at those six years, that’s just $0.02 per hour; I’ve played a fair amount since then, too, so the price is lower.  (Seems like more of a bargain now, doesn’t it Dad?)

Obviously, I can’t go over every single game I own; the list is too long.  I’ll also admit to buying some games and never playing them (or only playing through partway).  But overall, it looks like gaming costs between $0.01 and $1.00 per hour, depending on the game – and despite both up-front purchase costs and monthly fees, MMOs are nowhere near the worst offenders.