Half Life 2 is awesome! The graphics will look a little dated with what we're used to, but the single player campaign is excellent (and pretty long and in depth)! I would do them in order, Half-Life 2 first, and then obviously ep1 and ep2 (they are part of the same storyline). I actually have HL2 and play it about once a week for an hour or so. Now that I can run it at 1920x1080, I appreciate it much more. The zombie parts are pretty creepy. The gamplay and physics are really good. The girlies really like the Portal game. Team Fortress was fun for about an hour, but the cartooniness wasn't my bag.