First of all, a lot of people like HL2 because they are fanboys. Both FEAR and Prey has better storyline than Hl2, and both are much more realistic.
Second of all, I was talking about HL2 episode1, not the original HL2. HL2 episode1 is very short game, it has only 5 chapters, it is the shortest first person shooter game I ever played. And it is very similar to HL2. I prefer to play new games like Prey or FEAR over playing a short game like HL2 episode1.