A game that proved that Valve still had their magic touch after Team Fortress 2, Left4Dead proved a storm in the gaming community. Brilliant graphics combined with unique co-operative gameplay established this newcomer immediately as a classic of its genre, and shifted almost 3 million copies so far world wide.
With Valve releasing free content almost monthly for TF2, gamers were expecting amazing things from Left4Dead DLC wise. However, Valve were not so quick on the ball with DLCs, releasing the map creating tools over half a year on from its release. On top of that, due to the success of Left4Dead, Valve announced a sequel of which, of course, left a lot of loyal fans of the franchise fuming.
This was not a wise move by Valve at all, with the delayed DLC – which was even announced to be released with the game at first – and the announcement of a sequel coming out in no less than a year later to its prequel, fans became furious and talk of boycotting the new game was afoot on the forums.
In essence, Valve did create a fantastic game which revolutionised co-operative gaming and kept them as a leading creator of fantastic games. Even looking at the current usage of players playing games using their Steam software, Left4Dead is still ranked in the top 5 most played games (http://store.steampowered.com/stats/), so evidently the game is still a popular title. However with the emergence of Left4Dead 2 in November – and whether this will be a good game or not time will tell – it is difficult to say if Left4Dead will still be a leading title in Valve’s already elegant ensemble of creations.
Marchant