Architecture
General brush construction, particularly on the first level, is very Quake2-esque, since the author has made levels for quake previously. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is for you to decide, but personally, I think that the texture set of Half-Life does not exactly compliment this kind of architecture. The “palace” section of the map looks almost cartoon-like. I prefer my Half-Life levels to mimic real places, but again, that’s just my opinion. Fans of the q2 style will probably like this.

R_speeds here are bad in some spots, but not because of physical brush construction. In some places the epolys go up around 9500. Not good, as even in GL you’ll notice some framerate drops. Software-mode folks might experience sound stuttering as well.
However, the architecture, by itself, would make this map stand out from the rest. There are some different-looking environments; they are definitely not representative of most HL maps.

Gameplay
When I cracked open the ZIP for this set, I read that there would be no (live) human grunts in this set. I thought to myself, “Good. Not just another mindless gruntfest.” Well, I was not exactly right. This is not just another gruntfest; instead it is an alien-slave-and-alien-gruntfest. The author has simply reinvented the wheel, except having aliens replace the grunts. Unfortunately, the gameplay becomes very repetitive by the end of this set.
There are a grand total of 5 kinds of monsters in this set, if you count one lone zombie and a couple bullsquids in that number. Other than that you will face hordes of aliens slaves, many alien grunts, and enough xen masters to annoy the hell out of me. Now this many enemies would normally create a formidable challenge, but the author has made a critical error in his entity placement: there seem to be no nodes, ground or air, anywhere in the set. None of the monsters will come after you; they will sit right where they are. In the first battle of the level, I opened a door to 4 alien slaves. Always a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I dispatched one with the shotgun, and dashed around the corner before the others could shock me. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Hmmmm… I recommend playing a skill level higher than you normally do, as the fights are insanely easy when you can stick your head around the corner, shotgun a monster, and then wait for everyone to calm down. Rinse and repeat.
Weapon selection in this level consists of the shotgun, the 357, and a late appearance by the crossbow, mainly for taking out the alien grunts before they get a shot off. You’ll never be low on ammo unless you have no aim, and health is really not a major issue, as there’s 1 or 2 dead grunts with 2 or 3 medkits ever 3 or 4 minutes in this level. (whew, that’s a mouthful!)

Bottom Line
Fun for a while; gets repetitive fast. The gameplay here sadly cancels out any chance the architecture had to make this map stand out from the mainstream of HL maps. Still, d/l it for a gameplay fix. Oh, and by the way, according to the author you are "required by law" to email him and tell him what you thought of the level... take that into consideration when you download this level set. :P

Hints and Tips

• 90% of the time doors have at least 3 enemies behind them. Be prepared before you enter a room.

• Since a lot of the monsters in this set are spawned by monstermaker entities, they sometimes respawn after you’ve killed them. There’s no fanfaire about it either; they make no noise and there’s no sprite associated with the respawns.

• Always be on the “lookout”, ironically, for monsters that spawn behind you in areas that seem safe.

• Your best strategy is to take the monsters one at a time. Don’t rush into a room with 4 alien slaves and an alien grunt and start duking it out; you won’t survive. Take them from around corners when possible.