Um yeah. I know. My point was that it wouldn't work. Since then, I've uninstalled again (I didn't realize I had to go back and manually delete files too, after Steam did its thing). In any case, that's what I did, then did a total reinstall of just HL2. It seems to work fine now.
Loading inside Steam itself, or trying to play by clicking on the icon on the desktop. I know they need Steam to run but I thought doing one or the other might make a slight difference, though the end result is the same. *shrugs*
I realize there are posts concerning the non-functionality of HL2 already, but I wasn't really able to find an equitable solution.
I bought the Orange Box version of the game a few days ago. I was able to play the regular game just fine, as well as Portal, also EPs 1 and 2 seemed to load...