Review by WMan22 - Underhell mod for Half-Life 2

tl;dr: What the hell are you reading this for? Go play the mod and buy the soundtrack.

This mod is the mod to raise your standards for any and all source mods.

Underhell is whatever it wants to be:
If it wants to be a drama, it can be a drama.
If it wants to be a horror game, it will be a good horror game.
If it wants to be a shooter, it's going to be a shooter.
If it wants to be an adventure game, it'll be an adventure game.
If it wants to be a stealth game, it becomes a stealth game.

The best part about this all is that it excels in everything it sets out to do all with coherency. Every genre blend felt like it seamlessly fit into the story and worked just the way it need to.

The mod was incredibly lengthy too; in a good way. I clocked in at about 23 hours since I stayed and listened to the extra banter that was always interesting to listen to. It even showed me a couple of cutscenes I would have otherwise missed had I just rushed through the game and I heard optional dialogue that had major implications behind it. Also there is replayablity to be had, when I livestreamed the game my friend said "Wow this happened completely different than when I played." so I will be going back through the game again.

There were multiple occasions where I thought, "Okay, this is going to be the part where it fades to black and says 'to be continued'." Nope, it throws hours more content at you. The very talented dev team behind underhell are not content to leave you with a half assed ending that makes you go "Well ****, that was unsatisfying." Instead Chapter 1 leaves you with a satisfactory ending that leaves many questions that you know will eventually be answered as the chapters go on.

And last but not least, the soundtrack. Tom Stoffel's soundtrack hits all of the right notes at the right times; I will eventually purchase some tracks.

The main shortcomings this has are all source engine related problems, like sometimes odd camera tracks and the occasional crash.