I watched Me You And Everyone We Know which was quite excellent, Junebug which was quite good, and Matilda which was just horrible, but Samon will ban me if I say that so I'll say that it was great.
First they announce the game to be released year after the first one. Then they release it on time. And then they announce a DLC less than a month after the games release? THIS IS NOT THE VALVE I USED TO KNOW. I AM NOT BUYING THEIR GAMES ANYMORE.
I am using my Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition, because you need that or 2005 for Source, and it's free. http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/
I am not all sure what you could find more difficult in Java, except that it relies right from the beginning on classes. Classes are very important...