Valve has truly hit all the right notes with Left 4 Dead. They have everything down right for a cinematic zombie FPS from the B-movie-style writings on the wall to the film grain and even the music.

The best part of the game is the AI director, which makes for a different experience each time you play. Even though it is absolutely insane, the game shines most on Expert difficulty. L4D doesn’t have the same level of tension or AI director surprises on the lower difficulty levels. A friend just told me of how he spent three hours on the final level of No Mercy and was having the time of his life. I can’t think of a single other current game with this level of sheer entertainment.

While it feels clunky at times, the versus mode is quite fun. You play through the campaigns with the Survivors vs. the Infected. The sides switch off trying to beat the level or hinder each other. If you play as a zombie, you get randomly assigned one of the four special zombies (Boomer, the Hunter, Smoker, and the powerhouse Tank) from the main campaign. There’s little more satisfying than pinning a player to the ground and eviscerating him to death as a Hunter.

Thankfully, Valve fixed up the server matchmaking problems with the demo and now Steam groups can have their own servers assigned. It works pretty well for a large group of players. There’s no more ridiculous lag either.

I do wish the appearance of the boss Infected changed up some, since the normal zombies all look different, though you hardly notice it during tense Expert-level insanity. It would also be nice to see some more animations to ratchet up the creepiness even more, but that’s a limitation of the Source engine.

I give Left 4 Dead 5/5 shotguns to the head. Go ahead and purchase it off Steam or your local store as soon as possible. You won’t regret it.