Fans boycott Left 4 Dead 2

In response to Valve's E3 2009 announcement that Left 4 Dead 2 would be out by the end of the year more than 15,000 fans (and growing) have pledged to utterly boycott the game in protest.

Forming in their own Steam community group the L4D2 Boycott has quickly gathered a large number of fans who take issue with the way that Valve has moved on to Left 4 Dead 2 so quickly. Their complaints are nicely summarised around nine key points.

• Significant content for L4D1 was promised, and never delivered
  
• Valve put little faith in L4D1 since they almost certainly started working on L4D2 right after release
  
• The fact that L4D2 is nearly identical to L4D1 will decimate the community for both games
  
• The announced date is not nearly enough time to polish content or make significant gameplay changes
  
• The new character designs seem bland and unappealing so far
  
• L4D2 is too bright to fit in with L4D1's visual aesthetic
  
• The fiddle-based horde music is extremely disliked, though the differently orchestrated music is otherwise welcome
  
• L4D2's release will result in a drop in quality and frequency for L4D1 content, even compared to before
  
• The community has lost faith in Valve's former reputation for commitment to their games post-release

Since the group first started to swell in size there have been accusations that Valve moderators have banned users and removed posts about the boycott in the official forums, though the accusations aren't proven yet and Valve has yet to give a comment on the boycott.

Expanding on the issue many fans who have joined the boycott are asking why Valve isn't just releasing the sequel content as downloadable content, with many gamers pointing to the Team Fortress 2 expansions as proof that that Valve is radically changing support methods.

Left 4 Dead 2 is set to be mostly the same as the original game by the looks of things, with a handful of new boss zombies and a new melee system thrown in with four new campaigns and a refined AI director system. To find out more about the first game you can read our full Left 4 Dead review or check out our Complete Guide to Left 4 Dead for tips, tricks and tactics - or you can let us know yours thoughts in the forums.