it should be available a few days before (if its done) to give people more of an incentive to get the silver or gold versions (instead of bronze or box) as well as a chance for us HL1 fans to play through again to get ready for the new story and game :D run on sentence ;)
it wont take long to make a mod i suppose
take all the netcode and scoreboards and crap from CS:S, add in some respawning, make some crap map, throw some hl2 weapons in there. it doesnt seem too complex to just whip it up, could take a week or two if some talent worked together and did it. of...
Doom3 got a 94, so this is gonna be a weird score. its gonna be better than doom3, but i dont think it will be perfect, so its gonna be tough for them to find space between 94 & 100. doom3 deserved like an 85.
They are probably rushing this issue out so they will have the first review in the world, because so many Euro mags are reviewing the game on October 5.
http://img.roflz.net/20040926054110_30big.jpg
yes, i know its coming out a year or two after doom3 and hl2, but its still just amazing and a huge leap forward for graphics :D
there are real reflections. just look at the water effects and shading like that. of course there will be mirrors, they just didnt want to take a performance hit just for putting a litle reflective scope on the sniper.