This is not a thread crap.
Just a notice.
Some people that buy the Retail Half-Life 2 have reported issues with the "Securom" copy protection and/or the CD-Check code that Vivendi Universal has on the retail disc when attempting to play the game from a CD or DVD burner drive.
If you can get it, I personally recommend the Half-Life 2 Steam package version, since no CD-Check is performed and/or there is no Securom, since you download it via Steam.
Just a notice.
Gentle
P.S. If you want to run Half-Life 2 with Texture Quality: High, you would be wise to have at least 768meg ram.