Imagine, a Hollywood producer got his hands on the game. The result would be similar to what the Cinematic Mod is: a graphics blockbuster, redesigned to the typical game to movie adaption with an orchestral soundtrack and beautiful people everywhere.
After playing Hl2 around 15 times (including CM8 & 10) it was definitely worth playing it again with CM12. The effort put into making every scene look as beautiful as it does right now must have been extraordinary. Most HD-Mods simply concentrate on making some HD-Textures, but in CM12 you get new shaders, models, environment props and completely redesigned 3d-skyboxes, too. Just judging by the amount of content created this could have been a completely new game. Performance has been improved significantly in comparison to CM10 on my PC (hardware specs haven't changed) and I also love the Dynamic Music System, which sometimes makes me feel like I'm Batman :D However, thanks Fakefactory for providing this old experience in a new fancy coat for us.