Posted 06/01/2009 at 08:54:25pm

You're right. The original L4D was an awesome game. For about a week.

The bottom line is, it's hardly a replayable game, and that's why myself and many others felt a bit jipped. The multiplayer had so much potential, but the gameplay was so backwards it's hard to ever get the same group of people to stick around (there is really no incentive to stay in a game when you're on a sorely losing team). And does anyone remember how buggy and laggy it was right after release? Unacceptable for a retail version in modern times. 

The reason why it's frustrating to me is the price point. Team Fortress 2 was $29.99, and it's replayability has paid for itself twice over and then some. I STILL load up that game a few times a week to play. Left 4 dead was cool for about a month.

I'll be happy if they figure out the multiplayer component so the game actually becomes worth the price tag, otherwise this would be much better situated as a cheap add-on to the existing engine.

P.S. Your claims about code are based completely on speculation - I am a programmer, and it makes very little difference that they are on C++ versus something else (I highly doubt it would make sense to program any graphic intensive application in anything but C, but I digress). Plenty of other franchises have released add-ons that incorporate significant enhancements to the game engine itself. I can't say for certain what the reasons for a new game are, and neither are you, but you definitely cannot point to technology as the hard and fast reason. It could have had just as much to do about getting people to shell out more money as it does the technological hurdles involved.