Half Life 2 - I don't know...

I'm trying to pound through Half Life 2 so that I can trade it in toward Call of Duty 4 next week (or maybe I'll sell it on eBay).  Honestly, I'm not having a lot of fun with it.  I enjoyed Portal a lot.  I played a little of Team Fortress 2 with the AoW gus, who by the way were very cool and quite patient with my total newbie-ness.  But I see that game having a learning curve that I'm just not up to, given the release of CoD4 next week.

As I played through the main campaign in HL2, I just couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't having a lot of fun.  About 2/3rds of the way through, though, I figured it out.  I really was never the hunter (which is typically the case in first person shooters), I was always on the run.  The whole game felt like you were just never going to win -- you were just constantly running for your life.  "Gordon Freeman is that you?  Boy am I glad to see you.  Now get the fuck out of here, you have five thousand combine chasing you."

Episode 1 started off mildly fun, with all the gravity gun action, but that turned into almost a puzzle solving game -- (hmmm, what do I need to do to get out of this room?).  I just started Episode 2, which I've read is quite a bit more entertaining.  Still, it just feels like I'm playing just to get it over with.

I can't wait for Call of Duty 4....