It's inspiring that a company has the courage to let a franchise rest when it has artistically run its course (you need only to look to Hollywood for infinite counter-examples to this -- see http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/10/-worst-sequ... ). The fact that Valve can still be successful, even without pressuring their employees to develop more "sure thing" games (read: sequels) is pretty awesome if you ask me (I say this as a long-time HL fan).