Yeah, for sure. Originally, Half Life 2 was just going to be Gordon doing recon, and spec-op work on what would've been the Borealis, just without all of the nonsense attached to it.
People often forget that while lore is important, Valve prioritizes fun first, and has no problem throwing something in the trash, if although interesting, provides really no fun.
The numerous concepts of Half Life 2 weren't scrapped due to leaks, it was long gone by then. They were scrapped because Gabe, and a few others, figured there'd be nothing fun about being in another generic, 1984-esque, dark environment where you're constantly reminded me of how overtly poor everything is.
People come up with these grand conspiracies as to why Half Life 3, or Episode 3 haven't seen the light of day. But, in the end, it boils down to Valve having nothing technologically impressive to show off. That was the whole point in Half Life 2 - not to continue the story, but to show off their new engine, and all of the fun shit you could do with their physics engine. The story's been ironed out, and I'm sure there are numerous iterations, but what good is the story, if the game is a fucking boring snooze-fest?
