"Black Mesas Xen is three or four times longer than the original, which I'm not sure is the solution I'd have gone for. "Oh, you don't want your broccoli? Well here’s three times as much, bitch, and if you don't learn to like it I'm going to start pushing it up your nose." I suppose having worked on it for years they wanted to prove they weren't Duke Nukem Forever-ing that whole time, and that is most certainly proved. The cosmic vistas are spectacular, every inch of effort is on display, and while it is overlong and the quality has its dips, some bits are pretty forgettable and some chug along like the early morning hangover shits, there’s enough of a sense of wonder about it that I wasn’t unengaged. Trouble is, I don't think it addresses the actual issue with Xen – we just spent umpteen hours tactically combatting our way through an ever-evolving narrative about a research facility disaster and military cover-up and this Metroid meets American McGee's Alice bad acid trip at a children's ball pit full of tricky platforming and bullet spongey bosses doesn’t feel like a payoff for what was set up."