IT IS ABOUT GODDAMN FUCKING TIME.
Jesus fucking christ, this game could have been sooooooooooooooooooo huge, I hate to use a stupid gaming journolist term but the engine and game could've been a platform damnit, the kind of things they could've done with it would be huge!

The ongoing persistent support Valve offer to their games, ensures the community remains vibrant, it ensures the customers get value for money, ensures loyalty to valve and of course it ensures ongoing sales for years to come.
The non chargable DLC route is fantastic.

See: TF2 model
See: Burnout Paradise
See: Half Life 1 / 2 (CS etc)
See: Diablo 2, free online - continued patches, ongoing sales many masny years later

Here's my previous post on the topic.
http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=19732780#itemanchor_19732780

FWIW, I played Survival mode for 2 nights, it could have done with some small, simple tweaks, features, options to greatly extend its life, it really doesn't feel very fleshed out for something we waited so long for :/
NOTE: I totally got great value for money from L4D, it really was a fantastic single player / co-op extravaganza, like an awesome movie, campaign rocks! but sadly I really feel its true potential has been ignored.

goddamn this should've been out much, much much sooner - it's fucking mid May.