Certainly a cool idea, and it fits the theme. My concern though is just how in-depth the study of this can really go. As something you might mention incidentally in a lecture it would work fine, because you could explain the basics of it to the students, and give them enough of your own interpretation to get them thinking. As something that they're all required to play, however, it presents numerous issues.
First up, that means every student has to get hold of an Xbox or a PC or something to run it on, unless the school provides computers just for this purpose. Second, unlike watching a film or reading a novel, where you can just sit down and plough through it to finish in time for class, Portal is a puzzle game that requires you to pass each challenge. Granted, the game is only a few hours long so its unlikely, but if someone were to consistently get stuck on one puzzle, they wouldn't be able to appreciate the text in its entirety.
Third, how do you discuss something like this in class, or in an essay? Portal isn't designed to be easily referenced (aside from the damn cake), it's designed to be a seamless videogame experience. My guess is that they'd have to sequentially number each puzzle challenge for the sake of easy referencing. And on that subject, with a novel you can bring it to class to reference what's being discussed, or they can show you the film and skip forward to the chapter. If a student or a professor raises a point about Portal in class, in order for them to look at said moment in game they will need to have a copy of the game in class with saved games at every puzzle. Logistical problems only, I know, but I hope they've thought this through.
Finally, I just hope this professor qualifies to his students how they can address video game techniques in a written response. Because if all they're going to do is quote the computer, they're not really doing justice to the medium. Portal is a rare example of a narrative that works best as a video game, and no one has really yet come to terms academically with the critical language to describe how it works. Expecting undergrads to make that leap is too much, really. What I hope happens is that this Prof puts out a paper on Portal and introduces some of these techniques, I'll be excited to read it...
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