I would put HL1, Doom and Civ above HL2 in the category of either "best game ever" or "best gaming experience evar".
Yeah, of those four, these day's I'd rather play HL2. But, I might also place GTA:Vice City above HL2 and I probably will replay VC again more often than I will HL2. "Best game ever" is not, IMO, equal to "best game right now". Right now vs. ever.
I agree with the OP on all points, to a greater or lesser extent - probably to a much lesser extent than many people will be interpreting the OP to mean, if just because for every "hater" there is the "fanboy" who always assumes black & white: mild, genuine critisim is seen like some hater attack or trolling for their beloved game that ownz *. You can generally spot it when people start picking at exact wording from an opinion and implying not only that their own is different, but that the other guy's is wrong - like "you saying you didnt like that is just wrong, actually you loved it". Amd, um, you start to get lots of use of underline and bold
long personal opinion of my own negative points of HL2 follows, and yes there would be many posatives also but this thread is about the relatively few let-downs. I'll give my 'permission' to skip it since otherwise someone will complain like I'm trying to force them to read it:
I quite liked the plot, but also felt the messiah freeman detracted from HL1's unlikely hero of Black Mesa. I'd have prefered suggestion of more subtle subversion of the populace, and that it was not such a clear cut population vs. oppressors: some population should be subverted - that would be much more powerful. A plot where you have to figure out some things for yourself is always more effective than when everything is handed to you on a plate.
I like how things have the habit of turning out to freeman's favour, this bizarre part of SP gaming was not only explained well but brilliantly made into part of the story with the mysterious G-man in HL1, one of the key strokes of genious of that game. They didnt capitalise on this nearly so well in HL2, you never got the impression that something underhand was what was giving you these unlikely chances.
The ending sucked, being carried on the man-carrier things was cool, but the rest was just boring. Further, having all your weapons taken away and being left with one specific one is just so overdone and gets more and more boring every time.
The AI was just yawn imo. Where was the combine smashing open blocked doors, shooting things out of the way? They couldnt even get past simple crate barricades (a good tip for THAT sentry gun battle). The soldiers in HL1 were very aggressive yet also were difficult to draw out into a much more convenient location. In HL2, they follow you blindly and the only thing they're on a par for is their use of grenades. Teammates are just CRAP, total cannonfodder idiots.
It's also a pretty basic flaw to give enemy soldiers a cool weapon that you cannot use - the sniper rifle. They can have it, why cant I? Oh, because obviosuly its not a weapon its just some map scripted thing. Yawn. Even the enemy's use of it is pretty substandard, they're not exactly sneaky with it like a trained sniper. It's actually the worst implementation of a sniper enemy I can think of, MOH and OFP stand out as having vastly better sniper elements.
Looking back at the videos, there seems to be an awful lot in them that's not actually a scene from the game.
Of course, they are all pretty fidgety critisisms bar the AI. Before people go taking this as a huge tirade against HL2, bear in mind these are most of what keeps the game from being my all-time number 1, not from being a superb game - which it clearly is - with a firm place in my top 10, and that includes consoles.