I doubt HL:A will sell close to Beat Saber initially (it would be super cool if it did though), maybe over time if it becomes successful and the mod tools also take off to keep it relevant with legs it could surpass it. Oh but that's like Wii games, it's not a real game! There are others. Yes Half-Life is a great big IP but it's no more or less important than a stream of other games. Why's a new Valve game more important than an Insomniac or Respawn game? I mean, to me it's important as a fan of both Half-Life and VR, to be able to expect another very polished game, but with or without it I'd still enjoy the rest. It's not like Valve has been more infallible than others in their release output and they haven't shown much I care about in ages to present them as the chance to finally get a great game, others also make such. This is just the casual media outlets wanting everything on a silver platter, oh if it's not from an EA level gaming corporation with big E3 level press preview events we don't care, we'll leave that coverage to the casual gadget media outlets instead that have closer ties to those other big corporations like Facebook (but we'll still go gaga over Astrobot and PSVR and make it the GOTY because Sony is our friend and we've had a long lasting relationship, ignore that so we can make this claim now).
I agree with much of the more rationalized hype's side elements. Valve is a potentially great caliber (yet not infallible) studio and basically have free reign to do what they want without even caring if it costs too much or takes too long or whatever else, I just don't necessarily expect Alyx to be some super mind blowing thing for people who have actually played a lot of VR before (one of the two people in the video don't even have VR, lol). I held some, I don't know, not exactly hope, just on the back of my mind the possibility that they may show some new idea I hadn't considered. In the end it was what I expected, a really polished AAA VR FPS I'm super excited for, with mechanics not much unlike the unpolished or smaller scope (ie PVP vs story campaign) VR FPS I've played before. Basically what I knew an AAA developer can make with VR. Respawn was important when they were the Call of Duty creators that were now working for the Microsoft exclusive Titanfall but for VR they'd probably have gone ignored like Insomniac (since it wasn't a Sony Spider-Man game, lol) if EA hadn't bought them opening up the Medal of Honor IP to be used for their VR project. Don't get me wrong though, Alyx will probably be my favorite FPS.
Still, the stuff we've seen from Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners for example is more exciting, perhaps by virtue of people actually playing a game rather than watching a scripted demonstration. It's just clear that studio doesn't have Valve's budget, resources and expertise in certain areas (look at those facial animations, lol, hopefully that was WIP). But I'm sure Alyx won't disappoint in comparison (and that Saints & Sinners isn't infallible either, it has a lot of side elements yet is still meant to be a relatively short game so all the inventory and home area and such could just be annoying and unnecessary padding while the branching paths of the story might have been better served as part of a longer continuous adventure instead), it was just a first glimpse of it. Though with how cool and satisfying (and sadistic) those melee kills look I wish Alyx had included the crowbar. I guess they're leaving that for a Freeman game.
Lots of people in the other threads were surprised when shown other promising or existing VR games, how they also weren't on-rails or whatever, that's the fault and failure of the supposedly gaming enthusiast media not covering VR properly and some such hype videos just perpetuate the idea that everything outside (or before) Alyx is indeed on-rails and other such super limited stuff. That couldn't be further from the truth. So, I'm looking forward to Alyx for many reasons, but there's a lot more goodness out there. It just makes me feel like the Wii days, the media focused on the shovelware, memes and mocking with top 10 worst articles and other such shit instead of informing gamers about the many worthy releases on the system beyond begrudgingly admitting that, yeah, Mario's pretty great because they couldn't not acknowledge the IP's caliber and quality, as they do with Half-Life now.