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The True Deal to Collector's Edition. I noticed a similar reviewer shared the same opinions that I have. THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION JUST SIMPLY BELONGS IN THE GARBAGE CAN. You get: 1. A beat up, but a bigger and uselss Half-Life2 "collector's edition" box... which just blows. 2. The game(DVD)... no manuals, no big jewel case, just plane damn CD with the CD-key printed ON THE FREAKIN CASE!! A 4 year old can just snatch the plastic seal on the box and write down the CD-key in less than a minute. I have NO idea why Valve did this. 3. A XL T-shirt... and only in XL size.. Not to mention and ugly "FRUIT OF THE LOOM" tag.. No sign of genuinity, shrinks when washed, fades when washed, has an intial cost of probably.. oh say 5 bucks. 4. A Prima "mini-booklet" which features EXCERPTS of the official Prima Half-Life2 Concept Art booklet and the Prima Strategy Guide. NOTE: THESE ARE EXCERPTS AND NOT THE WHOLE BOOKLETS YOU SEE ON THE SHELVES. Plus, the mini-booklet is extremely small and offers nothing but advertisement. 5. NO SYSTEMS MANUAL. NOTHING. The products I have mentioned above are the only thigns you'll get with the "collector's edition". I am abosolutely cluelss on WHY there are no manuals (at the minimum), and why the price is EXTREMELY high. Valve's claim on the box of "world's most anticipated game" has some degree of credibility.. but I think Valve has gone too far to rip consumer's off with this one. The gameplay is mediocre at best, and nothing revolutionary.. despite reviews on how great the physics engine is... yada yada. If you really want some physic boggling fun, go grab and X-Box and play Dead or Alive 3 with computer animated woman breasts that would sway in any pleasing manner you wish. 6. You do get the full Half-Life2 game with a Half-Life1 remake with the new HL2:Source engine.. But who wants to re-play HL1 with... couple barrels you can roll down. You also get Counter-Strike:Source which is the official HL2 multiplayer mod... but all these features you can download with any typical HL2 package(except bronze). Well... on the plus side you do get more mods availible for play later.. one of the more anticipating mods is Day Of Defeat:Source which comes second to popularity behind Counter-Strike, and this mod should be worth the wait. 7. Pretty much it... I don't see the regular packages going on sale but the collector's edition you can pretty much find it at $49.99 now(virtually any computer electronics store). The regular edition I think goes around at $39.99. If you want to be an extreme geek and sports the HL2 T-shirt(which they gave away free at E3 anyway), then dish out the extra $10 to show your respects to the shirt. If not, if you are a typical CS1.6 player like I, then just get the regular CD or go for the silver HL2 package online where you get HL2 and CS:S. Oh.. and there are plenty of bugs offline AND ONLINE with this game. Valve is extremely fond of pumping out new updates every second, so in some cases you'll be stuck with jammed updating lines and also faults as a result of the update. BOTTOM LINE: AVOID THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION AT ALL COSTS.