A lot of people have been praising Left 4 Dead for it virtues, but complaining that there is too little content for what it costs. This has been an interesting issue for me. My heart tells me I should trumpet it's tight design and immense replayability. Yet at the same time, I don't know that I would feel wholly comfortable charging $60 for it on the Xbox 360 (I pre-purchased for the PC and, with the included discount, only had to pay $45). I began to ask myself why it is I would feel that way for this game but not so for other games that have "higher production values" yet do not produce the sheer joy of playing Left 4 Dead.

Case in point: The Darkness. This is a game that I did not purchase, but was given to me by a friend after his finished playing through it. When playing the game, I never questioned its $60 price tag - it had a large number of well realized characters and beautiful visuals. However, it was also plagued by repetitive gameplay whose innovations, where they did exist, quickly lost their hold on me. All told, I don't think I spent more than 5 or 6 hours playing the game before my will to press on faded away.

Conversely, I have already spent more than 10 hours playing Left 4 Dead, and feel like I'm just getting started. I have no intention of stopping my play of the game, and long for it if I go more than two days without playing. So why does Left 4 Dead seem somewhat overpriced, yet The Darkness did not? I am concerned by this impulse to associate value with the sheer amount and polish of the art content, but not the gameplay experience itself.

The true value of Left 4 Dead resides in the number of hours of entertainment it will provide, not in the length of time it takes you to trudge through its levels and cutscenes. Its value is not something that is seen, it is something that is felt. Like the game Portal (also by Valve, God bless them), it provides an experience that simply cannot be acquired elsewhere and invites revisiting. The game may be shorter than we're used to, but I don't think anyone would choose a long but drab experience over a short but exciting one. Or is that exactly what we have been doing with our games? We all may need to unlearn a simplified and errant view of quality.

-Jason

P.S. So for those that are unconvinced, where is that fine line that would make Left 4 Dead "worth the money?" Would another campaign (standardized in the game as a series of 5 thematically consistent levels) do the trick? More weapons to choose from? More zombie types? I think adding such things would be done not to improve the core game, but rather to assuage the nay sayers. There is already one type of sniper rifle - do we really need 3 or 4 to choose from? Some players have requested more strategic elements (like classes), but these would bog down the pacing of a game that is meant to be a scramble for survival. Like many others, I've pondered elements that could be added to the game to "improve" it but honestly I don't think it needs these things - they are just condiments on an already fine meal.