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Well I think the game is pretty revolutionary in a number of areas, a lot of them derived from the physics engine.
The plot is on par with HL1 IMO, not novel quality but good for a first person game.
How far are you along? The guards are just one of the opponents you'll face. The AI varies between fairly uninspired (guards) to pretty durn good (the flying aliens, the fast head crabbed monsters in Ravenhome and the tripod dudes). Watching the tripods manuver to get a shot at you when you're hiding is pretty impressive, they can figure out how to get under and around obstacles and none of it is scripted.
As far as being too long... the only gripe I had was that the game was too short, I finished it in 3 days.
The traditional weapons aren't anything special, but the grav-gun is the coolest weapon I've ever seen in a game, especially once you get into the combine. Combined with rag-doll and the insane level of interactivity and just about anything can become a weapon.
The level designs are IMO the best in any shooter that I've played... and I've played them all. COD has some very cool levels, and the Unreal franchise had a couple too, but HL2 had a TON of them, the bridge, Ravenhome, the airboat, the crane, and many more.
The installation thing is a matter of system capability. I told steam to pre-download the game and installation was about as painless for me as any game I've ever played. When I wanted to play the game on a different system I installed steam, copied the download directory from my other system and had the game running in minutes. Of course if you don't have a fast computer and broadband their approach is going to be a big PITA, so I can understand that complaint.
There's no such thing as a "timeless" game, they all look dated after a year, so that's not an issue IMO.
Sure there'll be better first person games in the future, but there's nothing close on the market today.
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