http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/breakdown
Breakdown. It's pitch perfect.
Even the bottomed out review of 30/100 states "And that's all it has going for it, a great sci-fi story."
The gameplay is hokey, but can be fun, especially since it balances between shooter (against the soldiers there to wipe out all the scientists and the experiment - hey, that's from Half-Life!) and hand-to-hand (you get a few story-imbedded sequences where you receive fist-based powers, like a bullet shield when you block).
It never leaves first-person, so it has that Half-Life-esque effect where you can't see yourself except when you walk past a mirror.
The game is challenging, but not Ninja-Gaiden, Nintendo Hard punishing.
The AI could use polish, but this was the same year you could beat the final boss of Dead Or Alive 3 by tapping the punch button.
The hands down best part is that it plays on the 360, so if you buy it and DL the backwards compatibility update (which I'm guess he has) it's right there, with no problems, so far as I've seen.
And it seems to be channeling Half-Life 1, and occasionally pre-cognitively 2, since your partner, Alex, can hold her own in a fight and is more of a companion than forced escort.
But instead of the usual Japanese nonsense, it's more in tune with F.E.A.R.'s weird happenstances, although the ones in Breakdown are explained by the end.
This is one of the games that I'm seriously considering reviewing myself just to get the word out.