@Tifosi-it's more of like an expansion pack and no it's not free.Valve decided tht instead of making the whole game and then releasing it would take a lot of time so they thought to release the game through episodes every 3 months.I know it's kinda dumb but rumours are tht EA is behind this since they like to drain our wallets to the last cent and they are now the publishers of Half-life:Episode 1.
Typical Valve - milk everything as much as they can.
The Half-Life franchise is as good as ruined now, unless the story really goes somewhere which I highly doubt is gonna happen once it becomes episodic. Games need to have some closure.