I would'nt say everyone is talking out of their respective asses. We do have one official statement regarding a possible release date from the CEO of Vivendi and he's saying April 2004, and alot of the retailers seem to be basing the possible release date on that.
It looked like before the source leak Valve & Vivendi were aiming for a release in December, but fixing the leak is gonna delay the release by another 4 months.
I was bored yesterday and decided to look around retailer's websites, so here's a list of 8 retailers and their dates:
Current retailer HL2 release dates (Compiled 10/17/03)
EB Games: 11/27/03
Game Stop: 11/11/03
Gameplay: 11/28/03
Best Buy: 11/3/03*
Comp USA: 1/2/04
Wal-Mart: 11/17/03
Chips & Bits: December 2003
Amazon.com: 12/1/03
*The Best Buy date is sort of implied on their site...if you look it up online and check out "Estimated arrival time w/ shipping", you'll see what I mean.
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Notice that none of them match...feel free to add to the list.
Well...I honestly don't know. And I'm not angry at VALVe, at all. Nor am I going to hold a late release against them. I'm simply stating that I think they will release this year. I don't think Hl2 was ready, or even meant, to be released on the 30th of Sept. From the first news post in PC Gamer there were hints at the anniversary...but I could be wrong. I'm simply stating what could happen. I admit, wishful thinking can override logic, but sometimes logic doesn't even make sense. We'll just have to wait, and see.