Metacritic is not the good gauge for the original, given the circumstances of its release. The game was made on an alpha version of Source without any devkit as Valve were developing Source/HL2. Its development was also troubled, and ultimately pushed out the door before it was ready. It’s a miracle the game even runs at all. Not only is the final third of the game notoriously lacking compared to the early parts, but the game is literally unplayable without the fan made unofficial patch. You run into a bug that hard locks your progression like 80% of the time and cannot finish the playthrough.
Despite all that it has become a true cult classic for its writing, dialogue and characters, its humour, impeccable atmosphere and fantastic sound track. It’s been cited as one of the design inspirations for Cyberpunk 2077, among others.
These are the things the sequel will struggle living up to. The entire thing that got people excited about it was bringing back the original writer/lead designer and composer.
Sort of the thing that makes me think this one still has a ghost of a chance, but then I’ve liked the games The Chinese Room has made before mostly for their writing and music. I’ll probably be disappointed, but them at the helm doesn’t kill it for me like it probably does for people who wanted more of the original.
Oh I might have forgot to put it in my post, but the original writer/lead and composer got kicked off the project when they dumped Hard Suit labs and gave the project to The Chinese Room. That - combined with the latest trailers - is why people who like the original have very little hope of the sequel recapturing the magic.
