If you can understand the header on this spoiler, you know what I mean.

Right when the vortigaunts come in, some badass song kicks in, and then you just sit back to watch them rip the bugs apart. I need to find that song, because it is so damn catchy.

HIT THEM WITH THE FUCKING CAR!

The gruesome way Eli is killed was actually pretty traumatizing. Straight outta Starship Troopers, that.

Eli KNOWS about the G-Man? I'm THOROUGHLY impressed with how the story is unraveling. I thought the end of this trilogy would still leave us really in the dark, but it's playing things out very, very well. My guesses so far are all over the place. Hell, one thought is that the G-Man is actually from a third alien race that is monitoring man-kind (could maybe explain how he pops in to Gordon's mind. It is telepathy, since he mentioned at the Vort part (where they are healing Alyx) that he had to wait for them to be occupied).

Very impressed so far. I'm a bit before the last chapter and thoroughly enjoying this whole purchase. This has more than made up for how much Ep 1 bored me. The urban combat was just getting real old real fast =(

Good to see that Portal will tie into Ep 3, if only because Aperture made the Borealis. But hopefully Chell will be in it, as well. Or better yet, a copy of GLaDOS will be on board. Oh Aperture Science, you so crazy.

ELI NOOOOOOOOOO. :(

With Dog fighting. Quite epic! Best part of EP2

It's nigh impossible to win... Yeah, the ONLY way to deal with the Hunters is to ram them, and it's all good, challenging but still doable until the dropships come. Then it's "miss once - game over. Oh, you haven't taken care of all Hunters from the last Strider of the first, individual attacks? Guess what sucker? GAME OVER! Oh, you've missed a Hunter once, and the second time you tried it jumped out of the way? GAME OVER FUCKHEAD! Oh, what was that? You've missed a Magnussen shot at a Strider, and now it's mixing up with the remaining two Striders and their Hunter forces? GAME OVER!".
I realise, it's supposed to be a boss battle. But the difficulty spike is WAY, WAY, WAY too high for my liking. I admire anyone able to play through that fight start to finish in one sitting without reloading. I can't even do it WITH reloading cause it frustrates me way too much.

Well, I had a small amount of trouble with the Strider-Hunter blitz. I read an earlier comment on here (I believe) and stuck to ramming the Hunters. It is what you're intended to do; I'm certain. Why? Well, Hunters have an annoying dodge where they jump to the side JUST ENOUGH to dodge your car, if you're aimed right for them.

It got to points where I'd grab a Magnusson bomb, aim, and quicksave. I'd fire. Miss? Quickload.

I always wiped out the hunters first. If you didn't, their flechettes would blow up the Magnusson bombs. It became habit, for me.

However, I'm glad it ended when it did. I had two striders at the damn fence-line at the end. Took them out courtesy of a Magnusson bomb transporter being near and a bomb on the back of my car. I am MORE than grateful that they allowed you to stash one on the back of the truck :3

As for the end? ELI NOOOOOOO ;__;

Looking forward to Ep 3. I'm thinking that the rocket in orbit won't do what it was supposed to, hence the G-Man's warning. I wish they would've expanded more on the Borealis, but I'm certain we'll get the idea behind it in the third installment.

Also --
Am I the only one who wanted to shout "WOLVERINES" after taking out all the Striders? ='D

That SO reminds me of the semi-final mission of STALKER... I quicksaved after every few steps I gained... I really don't like quicksavefests like that.
But apparently people having problems with the final battle of EP2 are rather rare.

Closest to calling it impossible was running out of ammo for certain weapons. I trekked it on foot just fine and had no trouble re-shooting the mines if the hunters were still there.

The Car.

I had a crapload of problems with this part, until I realized that the car moving at any sort of reasonable momentum can kill a hunter instantly. Throw a Strider bomb onto the back of your car, knock out the hunters, and then bring down the Strider.

I didn't use the car much. All I did was wait at a hideout for the Strider to come near, then attach the bomb (which bounces off 9 out of 10 times) and kill it. I ignored the Hunters. Guess I'll use my car to kill the Hunters, get near the Strider and kill it from behind.

Yeah, the hunters are assholes because if you're not REALLY fucking quick about shooting the bomb after it attaches, they'll quickly shoot it down and you're back at square 1.

The second chapter of the first Half-Life is called 'Unforseen Consequences'. Eli talks about this as well. It's just a reference to the first Half-Life, when you started hell on earth by doing the experiment. Apparantly G-man told Eli about this, back then.

I'm pretty sure that the G-Man said this because of the same reasons Eli laid out at the end. "He must have meant the ship. It could be worse than Black Mesa. You have to destroy the Borealis." (not a direct quote, heh)

Also:
I love the integration of Aperture Science in the game. It cemented what Portal hinted at. Dr. Kleiner's dislike for AS just goes to show that not only did Aperture dislike Black Mesa, but it was the other way around as well.

I'm really interested to see what kind of technology is on that ship. A large-scale portal device? Maybe Gordon will get a portal gun to go along with his gravity gun. OOooOOoooo

So....anyone else love the sound of Magnusons when they blow up?

I mean, even in the commentary they say that the design they had in mind was for the player to see some of the buildings blown up. Having to go back for Magnussons to attach to the car meant that I would always drive up next to a strider just as they vaporized a building.