Left 4 Dead 2 released this past week and while most people are having fun with it, there is a dedicated clan of people who are determined to convince the world that Left 4 Dead 2 is not a real game. These people, who we shall class as "f*cking idiots," have labeled Left 4 Dead 2 an expansion pack, unworthy of accolade and recognition.

These people are wrong and stupid. Left 4 Dead 2 is every bit a sequel as any other game, and trying to say otherwise is ludicrous. The arguments supporting the claim that L4D2 is an expansion remain nonsensical and reek of double standards. If you think Left 4 Dead 2 is an expansion, you are clearly very ignorant, very unintelligent, or you simply haven't played the game.

Read on as we explain why thinking Left 4 Dead 2 is an expansion makes you a f*cking idiot.

In recent years, Capcom has made some great progress in terms of becoming invested in PC gaming. The developer's last couple of major releases have seen solid ports, and in many cases, their exclusive goodies make these the versions you'd want to get above all else.

I'm not saying the company is perfect -- simultaneous PC and console releases, please? -- but it's certainly a major step up from the days of Resident Evil 4 on PC. Gross. That's why the recent news of Resident Evil 5 DLC for consoles felt off.

Not once did Capcom reference the PC version of RE5 in its announcement. Speaking to G4, a Capcom rep briefly stated there are "no plans for PC at this point," in reference to the Gold Edition content.

Perhaps they're waiting to see how the add-ons perform on consoles first, or they just don't have the resources to target all platforms at once. Or could it be a factor of sales not meeting expectations? I'm sure we'll know the reason before too long.

November 24? Why, that's next week!

In the rush of recent releases, I had almost forgotten about my beloved Borderlands and its premier downloadable content pack, "The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned." From what I can tell, it'll be an awful lot like Zombi 2, minus the zombie-on-shark action and nudity. Boo!

But who knows, maybe they've hidden the old insert-glass-shard-into-eye scene as an easter egg?

Gearbox has devised a dedicated site for the add-on, complete with all the back-story you'll ever need, some new screenshots, and a tease for an upcoming trailer. I'll bet you anything the video goes live on Monday, just in the nick of time.

Worst case scenario, you ought to go visit the site for the sinister tune that plays. It's kinda catchy.

In this episode of "Adventures in Batsh*t Insane PC Gamer Trickery," we get to see how a conversion of Left 4 Dead to the Left 4 Dead 2 standard is done. Someone was crazy enough to bring the first game's campaigns into the sequel, and it's paid off. Mostly.

You see, there is known breakage. The final moments during the finales tend to result in a crash, for instance. But it's progress, for sure. Obviously the next step would be to get the original survivors into the South in a playable state.

If you aren't scared away by warning messages, and you own both games legit, then proceed to the instructions on how to accomplish this black magic over at Left 4 Dead Mods.

[Via Kotaku]

Despite all the complaints, controversies and nerd rage surrounding PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward has officially declared that it sold more than the original game, indicating that the lack of dedicated servers was not a huge deal to most consumers.

"The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week," confirms Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling, "making it the most successful PC version."

It seems that Infinity Ward could have done no wrong with Modern Warfare 2. It managed to alienate a huge section of the PC gamer community, earn nothing but negative press about the PC release, and yet still eclipse the sales of Call of Duty 4. In any case, it would appear that dedicated servers are not quite as important to most PC gamers as some of them make out.

Of course, it doesn't help that most of the supposed boycotters are playing the game right now.

Following on from our discovery of a Midnight Riders teaser site, we've just been tipped offLeft 4 Dead 2's resident rock band now has a blog, as well as a Youtube channel. Check it out because it's brilliant stuff! The blog reveals that despite the "Green Flu," the Riders are still touring because America needs MUSIC!

"So I’m sure y’all have heard by now that yer ol’ pal Dusty said a few controversial things at the Waynesboro, Oklahoma show last night, coming down pretty hard against cancer research," says one blog entry. "I just wanna say that we totally support our pal, even though officially the Midnight Riders do not endorse any of the opinions voiced by Dusty last night, nor condone his actions afterwards, when a journalist asked him why he loved cancer and Dusty knifed him between the ribs."

Quite what all the promotion is for, we cannot say, but it seems like Valve is definitely going to be pushing The Midnight Riders in some capacity. Since fake rock bands are nearly always great, this is something we won't be complaining about. Even if The Midnight Riders' second album was released a year after the first one and was just a glorified expansion that we should boycott.

We're quite excited to see where this all could lead. Hopefully all sorts of fun things are in store.

[Thanks, Entrager!]

Want some straight up, no-bullsh*t, BioShock 2 deathmatch footage? We've got you covered. This new video dresses nothing up, it simply gives you a minute of BioShock 2 multiplayer action. This is what it looks like, so feel free to hit that video and check it out.

BioShock 2's multiplayer is looking fairly standard, but it's helped by the simple fact that it's set in Rapture. The decor and the look of the characters goes a long way toward making this look like more than a common garden deathmatch, even if the gameplay itself is not massively unique.

I'm still a little iffy on multiplayer being thrown into BioShock 2, but what the hell? Let's give it a chance and see if it doesn't suck.

Looking to go unconventional with the narrative, the team behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s innards tossed around several fantastic ideas before settling on the series’ familiar and grounded reality. Aliens and zombies and outbreaks and viruses were considered as a threat at one point in the initial planning stages.

“Infinity Ward's Jason West, Steve Macuda, Todd Alderman, Mackey McCandlish and me would talk about the kinds of stories we could tell, and we didn't want to just make a straight sequel to Modern Warfare,” said Modern Warfare 2 scriptwriter Jesse Stein in a recent interview with GamePro. “We started kicking around anything and everything to weed out the bad ideas.

“In the beginning we talked about having things in Modern Warfare 2 like outbreaks, viruses, chemical warfare, and even outlandish things such as aliens and the living dead,” he said.

Stein said that after the team decided to do grounded events, they kept conjuring up situations or scenarios that had already happened in the real world. Fortunately, IW and Stein did find some stuff that hasn’t: without going into specifics, MW2 is filled with brilliant scenarios that, thankfully, haven’t happened to our knowledge.

Still, though, “No Russian” would have been awesome with zombies and ray guns.

Rejoice! Despite doubt having been cast over the presence of dedicated servers in Aliens vs. Predator, developer Rebellion has today announced that the cross-species slaughterfest will support them. Looks like PC gamers shan't be needing to sign any petitions for this one.

"Despite rumors, Rebellion has always been planning to support dedicated servers for AvP PC and we can now officially confirm that this is the case," says CEO Jason Kingsley. "Rebellion has always appreciated fan support. We're really looking forward to the release of AvP as much as you guys are!"

With Modern Warfare 2 ditching dedicated servers and RAGE looking to do the same, there is a risk of a new trend occurring in the PC world. Good job some developers are sticking to their guns.

Since many of you are like-minded folk, I can only assume you spend a good portion of your days pointing and clicking. I know I do. Why then, are we wasting our precious finger energy performing mundane tasks when we could be performing mundane tasks and totally getting sweet loot in the process?

Torchlight has been out since what, late October? Chances are if you had any intention of playing this year's Diablo, you would have done so already. Or you're waiting on a Steam sale.

I don't exactly know who this post is intended for, but here goes anyway: publisher Perfect World Entertainment is offering up a 2-hour trial of Torchlight. Having not tried this out for myself, I can't say what happens when the time runs out.

I'd like to think a self-destruct sequence on your computer is activated and the only way to prevent imminent destruction is to fork over the full $20. Tomorrow's headlines will surely read "Torchlight sales skyrocket 300%."

Welcome to another 24 hour contest! This time, we're giving away For the Glory - A Europa Universalis Game for the PC. For the Glory is a historical real time strategy game that spans from the years 1419 to 1819. Build up troops, take over countries -- do to the world what you will. Plus, the game was developed by a team within the Paradox fan community. Neat! You can get more info on the 32-player game after the break.

To win one of the five codes we're offering, you just simply need to leave a comment saying "Give me For the Glory!" You can comment as many times as you would like, you just have to wait for three other people to leave a comment before you can enter again. Deadline to enter is 11:59 CDT tonight and the contest is open worldwide! Good luck!

[Update: Codes have been given out!]

Does Global Thermonuclear War ring any bells? It was one of the hidden multiplayer modes in Modern Warfare 2 that Josh told us about just the other day. Having opened up the developer console, which, by default is blocked, players were able to gain access to otherwise unplayable modes.

GTW was one such mode, tasking players with "capturing" a nuke for 90 seconds to detonate it. Now, thanks to the persistent bunch at ModernWarfail2, everyone has the opportunity to witness the mayhem.

Since it's only a single guy showing this off, the build up is really tedious. But I'd be willing to bet a full match would be tense, frustrating, and most importantly fun. Whether or not this mode will A) get the paid DLC treatment, B) one day get unlocked for free, or C) never be officially released remains to be seen.

As a quick aside, the "getting a virus by way of IWNet" was a false alarm. No need to panic, for once.

Alright, you're sick of PC gamers whining about Modern Warfare 2 and how they're getting shafted by Activision and Infinity Ward. Dirty pirates and hackers deserve to get shafted, and that's all PC gamers are anyway, right?  

Well, among all the dirty hackers and pirates are more than a few legitimate players, and it seems that a bunch of them are getting banned for legitimately buying Modern Warfare 2. On the Steam forums, players have been reporting that their (legitimately bought) game CD keys being revoked. Valve representatives responded, saying that the players in question bought their keys from an "illegitimate seller" and would not be getting their games unlocked.

For console-only gamers and folks in the developed world, I cannot emphasize this enough: THIS IS NOT PIRACY. Digital CD key vendors exist and - in the majority of cases - are legitimate sellers. The vendors buy authorization codes at bulk prices, selling the keys to customers for profit. They're used as an alternative form of digital distribution designed to address lower-income markets, like Russia and Asia. Customers then redeem the codes for access. LAN cafe owners also use CD key vendors to buy and authorize multiple copies of the same game without having to buy a huge amount of boxes or discs.

It seems these legitimate vendors are no longer legitimate. At least not in Valve, Activision and Infinity Ward's eyes. In retrospect, one can see why this would happen. CD key vendors operate (legitimately) in a loophole that exists outside the usual channels, one uncomfortably close to piracy. Since Modern Warfare 2 incorporates Steam natively, it would be natural for Valve to want to channel all purchases of the game through Steam and at Steam's pricing. Savvy players (namely the people who just got revoked) would undoubtedly want to take advantage of the low bulk rates, eventually undermining region-based pricing schemes. Plus, Valve (and Blizzard) have their own Steam/Battle.net-based mass-authorization deals for LAN cafes that they would like to push.

The logic behind the move is solid and is a natural sign of the way the business is adapting but that doesn't really help the people who can't play Modern Warfare 2 anymore. Until they can cough up $60 dollars, anyway.

The Dragon Age: Origins Twitter account doesn’t spread lies like your standard, filthy Elf commoner. Something “cool” was announced this afternoon relating to Bioware’s latest RPG: the “Return to Ostagar” downloadable expansion.

Return to Ostagar takes the player back to the place where he or she became a fabled Grey Warden and experienced just an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bit of turmoil as such. According to the EA press release, the DLC will allow players to “exact their revenge” for the slight at Ostagar and quest for the golden armor of King Cailan for $4.99 (or 400 Moon Bucks) across all three platforms. Nice.

So, downloadable revenge and special loot is coming to Dragon Age: Origins at an unspecified holiday date. Sounds like we need to clear a spot in our schedule whenever the release is pegged. Not that we'll be doing much other than playing through Origins stories anyway.

[Thanks, Rockatansky and Victor Stillwater!]