At first this looked like a cheap HL2 mod to me, but now that I have tried the demo I see it in all its glory.

The AI director really makes a difference, it's difficult to imagine without playing it yourself but the AI can be a real biatch. On my 1st play through I didn't think of it as anything special. But I began to realize its true nature already on my 2nd run as I was staying a bit behind and was sucked in by "a smoker" with the long tongue while my team further ahead was confronted by a horde of walking dead making them unable to help me. Similar "accidents" followed. It is simply brilliant and keeps the game fresh.

The atmosphere is the main selling point of the game tho, the grainy graphics, movie-like opening cinematic and brilliant sounds all contribute to it. The blood effects when blowing off the heads of the walking dead don't leave much to improve either. The graphics are undeniably a bit old, but the animation when your wounded team-mate is limping around are great and honestly the number of enemies on the screen at once reminds you how impressive the engine actually is.

The gameplay while rather simple seems to perfect the FPS formula, enemies are taken down with a single shot while you can take a fair deal of damage, not much glitches are around, weapons are varied and behave the way you'd expect them tho, pipe-bombs attract zombies leading to mega-kills while under-powered pistols never run out of ammo, every weapon has its use.

Pacing has always been the strenght of all Valve games, and it's still intact in L4D despite the dynamic structure of the game. Zombie hordes will break the silence and the boss enemies will surprise you in ways you can't predict.

If I had to come up with something negative to say I guess I could blame the AI team-mates for being too smart, they never make mistakes and as such make the experience a lot less exciting, thankfully finding human company is no problem. Other issue would be the rather dated source engine, the graphics despite being stylished and fitting to the theme can't always hold up to modern standards.

But all in all, I ordered this game tonight judged by the demo, and I recommend you atleast give the demo a try as well. And remember, even if the demo only gives you few hours of fun the full game will have A LOT more content. 

This was originally a forum post, but I think it's more of a blog material so I'll post it here too with pics.

Mini-reviews of my 10 most player games this year:

The Orange Box (PC)

Portal, TF2 and EP2 are some of the best games I've played this gen and even the brilliant HL2 mods alone like Insurgency would be enough reason to purchase it.
10/10

Mass Effect (PC)

One of the best action-RPGs this gen with great gameplay and visuals, but unfortunately lacks depth(skills, items, choices), lenght and memorable characters.
8.5/10

Sins Of A Solar Empire (PC)

Innovative take on RTS with massive scale that still remains easy to manage, unfortunately lacks campaign while not perfectly suited for online play either, also buildings and tech trees could had used spicing up.
8.5/10

Spore (PC)

Lot of fun on the first play through thanks to innovative creation tools and varying gameplay, but lack of depth eats away any replay value and poorly interfaced space stage easily becomes tedious.
8/10

Audiosurf (PC)

Great way to listen to your MP3s, it encourages you to play songs you might not had otherwise listened, and the puzzle gameplay with leaderboards makes it quite addictive.
9.5/10

Race07 (PC)

A very fun game to play online with racing series perfectly suited for competitive gaming, semi-realistic gameplay forgives enough for newbies while keeping even advanced players challenged.
8.5/10

PES 2008 (PC)

Has the old addictive PES gameplay but improves too little to be worth a buy for owners of previous iterations.
7/10

Resident Evil 4 (PC)

Good game at the core with nice atmosphere and great boss fights, but the old fashioned and sometimes clunky controls mechanics don't really suit the more action oriented direction the game took.
8.5/10

NWN2 (PC)

The best RPG this gen with great amount of depth, humour, likeable characters, good story and unforgivable number of technical issues.
9/10

The Witcher (PC)

Beatifull and deep game with many choices, but the combat system doesn't quite cut it for an action-RPG and the lack of proper clas, skill, weapon and party structure leave it too light on the RPG side of things.
8.5/10

Playing Fallout 3 recently made me realize how much games have changed over the years, unfortunately it's not all for the better. The games in late 90s had lacking gameplay and presentation compared to what we have nowadays, but at least they were often funny.

When I think back to best games of 90s, one common feature that stands out is humour, not taking itself too seriously. Duke spat out some lol worthy one liners constantly, Fallout 2 was filled with silly humour and Monkey Island 3 was true comedy from the beginning to the end.

But now... what was the last FPS that you thought was funny(and bugs don't count...)? Master Chef with the personality of a potato represents todays gaming perfectly. How'bout RPGs then, Mass Effect and Oblivion propably represent todays wRPGs the best, and both are completely devoid of any humour.

Luckily there are some exceptions tho, The Witcher and especially NWN2 did introduce some funny to modern RPGs, GalCiv2 and Red Alert 3 took care of the strategy side of things not to mention games like Portal. (it might be just a coincidence but these are also the games this gen that appeal to me the most)

But still, considering the amount of games released these days it's shocking to see majority of games take themselves so seriously. Unless the game is in the "comedy" genre developers seem to think it's forbidden to have humour in it, and that's a shame.

I had high expectations for Spore, and after few low review scores I kinda got worried there for a bit, but I'm glad to say that Will Wright delivered what he promised, and Spore is one of the best games I've played this gen.

It's simply fun, and funny, and creative, and addictive. It's been a long time since any game made me play it 8 hours the day I purchaced it, but Spore simply won't let me go.

The 1st stage - The Cell
A good start is important for any game, and Spore certainly has it. It's a simple mini-game based on pacman, but that doesn't make it any less stunning. The graphics are charming. The behavior and sound of those little critters is simply hilarious. It's not a big part of the game, but it's a good way to start and doesn't wear out its welcome which is important.

The 2nd stage - The Creature
It's very fun at the start, learning everything like dancing, attacking, forming packs and developing your creature, but it runs out of steam pretty quickly. It's extremely fun to slaughter someone's uber-cute huggy bear creations but all in al the 2nd stage drags on for too long with too little to do.

The 3rd stage - The Tribe
The idea is fun, but the execution is again a bit too simple. Slaughtering enemy village is satisfying but that's pretty much all there is. At least it doesn't last long enough for you to get bored unlike the 2nd stage. All in all it's a good simple Settlers mini-game type of thing.

The 4th stage - The Civilization
This stage surprised me positively. It's fairly simple, but at least in my case it was also hectic, challenging and involved a good deal of strategic thinking and tactics. The management and diplomacy were shallow at least when playing with an aggressive civilization, but all in all the gameplay was quite satisfying in a small dosage.

The 5th stage - The Space
This is what it's all about. The 1st 4 stages took about 8 hours to complete, the space stage should offer about 8 hours of gameplay on its own. I'm only very little in it, but so far it's been good, the UFO controls beatifully, there's a lot more meat around the bones in this stage, and it seems to combine all the best parts of the previous stages.

All in all Spore already is an AAA game in my books, it is a love it or hate it kind of game due to being accessible to everyone, but if you liked The Sims or creating spaceships in GalCiv2 you'll prolly like Spore, then again if GeoW is more up your alley there's a good chance you'll end up hating it.

Still, everything Spore offers wrapped up together equals epic, there's no denying this is the most innovative game of this gen and as such should be a must buy for ANY and EVERY gaming fan. Different paths between vegeterian/carnivore/religion/war/economy should provice a good replay value, not to mention the editors and endless content provided by Spore players around the world.

To put this simple, if Spore doesn't sell well I will officially lose my faith in humanity.

I love space sims, even tho there aren't really any these days. And the few popping up here and there have sucked. But here's a few to look forward to:

Dark Horizon

The Tomorrow War

Jumpgate Evolution

Infinity

X3: Terran Conflict

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Also worth noting:
Aces Of The Galaxy (a port of a 360 arcade game)
Wing Commander Saga (FS 2 mod)
Beyond The Red Line (FS2 Mod)