Look, we all respect people's opinions, some people will find HL2 boring, I didn't find it boring. This game has high production values and people seem to ignore them, some people say that this game is highly over-rated, it is over-rated in the slightest but not to much.
Portal for me was really fun, I can't believe why people don't like it. Sure, there are some boring areas but that doesn't retract from the experience.
And one more thing for residentsteve:
This game is considered as an excellent piece of game design and manufacture. And no, it is not perfect. No game is. You don't like the game? Wonderful, good for you. You have your own reasons, which are, as far as I can tell, that you don't care for the setting and production design. This doesn't make it a bad game, nor over-rated. That simply means you guys don't like it.
EDIT: I suspect that the people who post why they hate HL2 can be people who think that this game doesn't suit their taste, which makes me to wonder why the hell did they picked it up in the first place. Buying a game without looking it first is a terrible idea...