Half-Life was always a gameplay-first series anyway. Everything exists in service of the gameplay loop. Of course if Half-Life 3 was made today it would look very different from a Half-Life 3 made in 2008 or 2010 or 2015, not just in gameplay but in the story that would shift in service of the gameplay.

It is really cool to get some insight into where that story might have gone back in 2008 though.

I've been avoiding reading that because I still hold out hope. I think some community effort started up to do it; I wonder how that is going?