Yeah, it never would have lived up to the hype. Explained nothing.
If this had been released as episode 3 a couple of years after episode 2? Sure it could
The opening was laden with every disaster movie signal (up to and including "Nothing will go wrong" said in emphatic tones). The lift doors in Office Complex open to archetypal zombie horror. The scientist getting gunned down by the military cover up in We've Got Hostiles hits any number of movie tropes while clearly signalling the next bit is Rambo-style action...
It's fairly similar to the first Star Wars movie, in that because it is hitting the tropes quickly and clearly, and jumping from setting to setting, it can tell the story very efficiently.
I would argue that what you said is all about show vs tell. Which is a good thing for visual media.
> It was impossible to hold a coherent thought, given the baffling and paradoxical timeloops, which passed through the ship like bubbles.
I would have loved to have seen what Valve would have done with this.
Yes, or at least I did. Very much so. I loved the story so much that I would probably be quite happy watching a Half Life 3 movie.
Fun fact: there IS no "Half-Life story bible", so it's not like they're witholding story from you, they just literally haven't written it: https://twitter.com/marc_laidlaw/status/899511161145573376