I think its still in the RC stage....BUT there has been loads of rumours that it has allready gone gold....if it has i will spooge myself with excitment.

Im Hoping for the Release stage :mrgreen:

"

Its HOPE :oops:.

We need more than hope if this game isn't out soon.

Like CSS

Cs:S was released to calm people down, because HL2 isn't coming out anytime soon.

Its the CALM before the STORM! :twisted:

Hopefully the game lives up to the anticipation and promise. Reminds me of the release of Star Wars phantom menace back in the 90's. Although, I haven't seen a single Half Life 2 commercial on TV. (Then again I dont have cable)

This game doesn'y need any tv ads to support it, it has a huge community following it

Not so sure that I agree with you on that point. It has a huge community, but even when all of us rush out to buy it, we will still only account for a small fraction of the games sales. It's the casual gamers that account for the moajority of sales. Most casual gamers don't read many gaming sites, nor do they keep up with what the next big thing is. They see in-store ads/tvads/ads in maxim/etc. and buy the game based on what has the most badassed ads.

Warning: This post may contain some opinions stated as fact.

I wouldn't be too sure on the gold rumour. Small things spread awfully fast in this business and voila, suddenly someone says the game is gold, or rather the "pinata" is broken.

This may or may not be true but im still so excited.

I think that there is a 95% chance that The game will be out before Thanksgiving, so a gold announcement right now makes sense. But they could end up waiting a few more weeks.