The way I see it look for HL3 in 2011, but most likely delayed to 2012. If you look at the time line it makes sense. HL1 (heavily modded quake engine)-> 6yrs -> HL2 (all new steam engine) -> 1.5yrs -> Ep1 (point upgrade to steam adding HDR and stuff) -> 1.5 yrs -> Ep2 (another point upgrade doing a lot stuff in the engine also now known as the Orange Box edition) --> 3 yrs -> Now. So yeah too long for just an episode, and valve knows they can't release another episode under the orange box edition of the game because no matter how good the game is people (who say they don't care) will ***** about the graphics being old, despite the fact that no one can approach the source engines audio,physics, or characters. The orange box got away with increased texture rez but the will need to up the polys and include normal/parralax and all the other whiz bang effects so they are probably working on a major update to the engine (they it is like the Unreal engine and as such is made of parts so compatability should still be good, hell Bioshock was UE2.x)
So the time I give it, and the fact it'll probably be a full sequal, is based off of a few things.
1) its been too long for just an episode.
2) The half-life lore has expanded with the addition of portal, so the whole borealis was most likely expanded from a few hours exploration to a whole game around it and portals.
3) hl2 took 6 years because the engine was from scratch almost twice, source code was stolen, since valve only needs to update i took a year off the 6yrs.
4) if 3 episodes make a game, then 3 episodes at 1.5 yrs a piece equals 5.5 years (remember the stolen code) so again we are seeing around 6 years for the game.
5) Valve still has a few announcements so they will probably another HL3 at E3 for holiday 2011 release, but it will, in Valve fashion, be delayed until 2012.
This is all conjecture but, come on, it's Valve. Valve is like grandma's apple pie, sure it takes so much longer versus the norm but at the end of the day it is that much better for it.
And really the first time Valve did a timnely release, L4D2, everyone complained it was too quick, Valve cannot please its community with regards to time, so they just make their games awesome and all is forgiven. So trust in Valve to make an excellent game and not release it until it is of the highest quality.
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