Woodsey said:
I've always found Half-Life 2 quite difficult on normal, not really sure why.
My Dad got Half Life 2 back when it came out and, as I was quite a bit younger than I am now, I watched him play it as I was far too scared to do so myself. He played it on Normal, and always seemed to have a lot of trouble with it. Especially with Striders.
Then recently (i.e. the end of 2009) I got the Orange Box, and was very excited to play Half Life 2 for the first time after having seen it played so much. I stuck it on Easy, clinging to the same childish fear that I'd apparently carried over. It was, as the difficulty name suggests, very easy. I ramped it up to Normal (ooooh, hardcore

) for my next playthrough... aaaaaaand I still did it with no trouble at all.
Maybe my Dad just isn't very good at it.