I haven't played the 2nd game, and I'm sure it's superior and yadayadayada. I'm reviewing the first game. And.. well yeah, it's good clean fun. If No More Room in Hell is the more cerebral, slower paced zombie survival objective FPS, then this is the pure fast-paced action counterpart. It's showing its age of course but the shooting is still satisfying, the dynamic music system sets the tone, the survivor bot AI still manages to impress all these years later, the zombies still very much do threaten, and there are still enough people playing it to get a game going within a minute or so, often within 30 seconds. Can't comment on how many of them are cheaters, but there are definitely a reasonable amount of people still playing.
There are many newer games that simply don't get the fundamentals right like this game did.
Of course you don't want to pay full price for this game. Get it on sale. Whether you want to get the sequel instead on sale, as I presume it will be on sale at the same time - is up to you. Like I said, have yet to play the sequel, can't comment. But on its own merits, Left 4 Dead deserves a recommendation when at a discount price.

I haven't played the 2nd game, and I'm sure it's superior and yadayadayada. I'm reviewing the first game. And.. well yeah, it's good clean fun. If No More Room in Hell is the more cerebral, slower paced zombie survival objective FPS, then this is the pure fast-paced action counterpart. It's showing its age of course but the shooting is still satisfying, the dynamic music system sets the tone, the survivor bot AI still manages to impress all these years later, the zombies still very much do threaten, and there are still enough people playing it to get a game going within a minute or so, often within 30 seconds. Can't comment on how many of them are cheaters, but there are definitely a reasonable amount of people still playing. There are many newer games that simply don't get the fundamentals right like this game did. Of course you don't want to pay full price for this game. Get it on sale. Whether you want to get the sequel instead on sale, as I presume it will be on sale at the same time - is up to you. Like I said, have yet to play the sequel, can't comment. But on its own merits, Left 4 Dead deserves a recommendation when at a discount price.