Talk about a tease! Apparently, Half-Life 2 is already on store shelves. But before you get too excited, understand that it is still not going to be playable till Tuesday. Now why is this?

Because the game sellers may be selling them now, but there is still a release date that has to be held to I suppose. Then again, is this really that critical? Are we so pumped up that we cannot wait any longer? If this is the case, then we have definitely take it in stride since there is nothing can be done to get the game started any earlier anyway.

You may find Half-Life 2 on the shelves in some places!
but the game is not playable until tuesday.

Valve corporation announced earlier:

If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valve’s choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam authentication servers at this time.