There's a lot of uninformed nonsense passing for criticism of this newly-announced sequel.

Is it 'just an expansion pack'? Clearly not in my opinion. But surely we can't make that judgement anyway until November. It's a lazy accusation based on nothing that could actually be irrationally thrown at any sequel.

Could it be packaged as simple DLC for the original? It depends. If the engine is updated so that the existing content is no longer playable, then you have problems. The existing levels may not be able to be simply amended for melee weapons or the new zombie designs or infected. And the new AI director may simply not be compatible with the content for the original game. This is all very likely - making it DLC, and having to amend the original game to take it all into account may add many months to the development cycle.

But the real question is whether a year is an acceptable amount of time to create a worthy game. We can only judge that in November. As much of the content, including the narrative, is dynamic, then I would argue that it probably can be improved substantially in a year. It's much more comparable to the idea of a updatable sports game than a content-heavy traditional story-based adventure.

I certainly don't see that Left 4 Dead has been unsupported by Valve, which is the accusation that many are making. A major update added a new multiplayer mode recently. And nothing was charged for this update, which is very unusual in today's triple-A game marketplace. It seems to me that nobody has any right to really criticise Valve on that issue - we should be applauding their continued commitment to their products, in the light of the recent updates to Team Fortress 2.

The other criticism that's going around seems to be blaming Valve for ignoring their other titles - fans are obviously eager for new Portal and Half-Life installments. This seems to me a ludicrous accusation with little merit - we are blaming them for not rushing out Episode 3, but criticising them for a quicker sequel for L4D? It makes no sense. There is no evidence that work on L4D is at the expense of other titles.

Personally I'm much more interested in Left 4 Dead than Valve's other titles. Portal seemed like a perfectly-formed masterpiece that simply doesn't necessarily require a sequel. Much as I love the Half-Life series, the first-person shooter is a tired genre that needs some reinvigorating - witness the lack of FPS at E3 this year! Left 4 Dead is pushing new boundaries with its AI Director and its approach to dynamic narrative - I'm delighted they are pushing in that direction.

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