“I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience,”Newell said.

Valve Corporation co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has sent a public message revealing that credit card numbers and other personal information have been compromised during an attack on its Steam service.

Valve advises that all of its customers monitor their credit card activity, as those numbers were inside a database that the hackers penetrated. The Steam Forums are currently closed, however the service remains online.

“We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating,” informed Newell. “We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.”

The database exposed during the attack “contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information.”

The sequel expands on the original in many aspects; including a longer campaign, new secondary weaponry, and even a cooperative campaign. However, at the begging of its development, Valve also had plans to include a competitive multiplayer mode, but it was later axed because of its “chaotic” nature.

“Along with co-op, [we had] the idea of sort of a competitive Portal multiplayer,” said Portal writer Erik Wolpaw, when being  interviewed by 1UP. “We went down that path, actually, for a little while and had something up and running — the best way to describe it is sort of speedball meets Portal. You know, a sports analog.”

“And it quickly became apparent that while it’s fun for about two seconds to drop portals under people and things like that, it quickly just devolves into pure chaos. It lost a lot of the stuff that was really entertaining about Portal, which was puzzle-solving. Cooperative puzzle-solving was just a much more rewarding path.”

He then reveals that the mode consisted of moving a ball from one end of a space to the other quickly using portals. However, in practice, Wolpaw says “it was a mess”.

Ever since its announcement, fans have been asking for the introduction of the original Left 4 Dead 1 survivors with the new Left 4 Dead 2 cast. That said, Valve today announced the first piece of downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2, which will feature the introduction of the two survivor casts.

Due out next spring, The Passing will take place between the Dead Center and the Dark Carnival campaigns within Left 4 Dead 2. Set in a small town within rural Georgia, players will assume the role of the L4D2 survivors as they meet up with the L4D1 survivors.

However, that’s not all. The Passing will also include new arenas for Survival, Versus and Scavenge, which will introduce a new co-operative challenge mode of play. As well as, a new “uncommon common” zombie class, melee weapon, and firearm. With that said, The Passing is targeted for release in early spring for the PC and Xbox 360. Pricing will be announced closer to launch.

Note: This is an article was written for the sole purpose of the Arthur’s experience with Left 4 Dead 2, with his dislikes and likes, however, this isn’t a “hands-on” of the game, but we will have a review once the game has released.

At E3, we were shown the first revealed level of Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel to the revered PC and Xbox 360 title. There, we had our choice of preferred console, select food and drink, and even some excellent posters courtesy of Valve. In case you don’t know, Valve does an excellent E3 suite, and to my knowledge, always has.

EA’s showing of the latest revealed level, a swamp, was a little less homey and a little more ghoulish. Set in the same room as Dragon Age, GI Joe and Saboteur, L4D2 had its own entire wall, and to the right of it a leg sticking out of a wall and a body hanging from the ceiling. A nice touch, though perhaps a little extreme for the fast-paced fun that is Left 4 Dead.

Seated, armed only with puny Xbox 360 controllers (seriously, it’s a PC game, and I’m not being a snob about it), the new team begins in the swamp area. A large building, some marshes and a sniper rifle later, my friend and cameraman, myself, and two strangers were under attack by a horde while trying to escape from one land mass to another. Glitchyness aside (one guy accidentally flew off into the water, for no apparent reason except that the hiding alligators compelled him), the brainless zombie defeat was at hand.

I spent half the fight halfway down a ledge in the water, unable to pick myself back up. This, of course, wouldn’t have been a problem if my teammates didn’t have either the brainpower of a piece of toast or the finger dexterity of roasted duck. Suffice to say, I’m used to playing on the hardest difficult on the PC. Normal on the Xbox 360, no matter how much I distaste using a controller for this game, is still ridiculously easy for a veteran, and is only good as fuel for hating your inept teammates even more.

So if you see or have seen any videos of EA’s showcase, you may have heard me yelling at them to do things properly. Like shooting their guns, or throwing pipe bombs/molotov cocktails, or picking up the new incendiary ammo over and over when a horde attacked near a weapons cache.

What does this all mean? It means that Left 4 Dead 2 is as good, if not better, than the first. A few new bosses, larger open areas and more necessary teamwork mean player compatibility is at an all time high, and I was taken out by Valve and beaten with an ego-crushing stick to learn that. At least when it was done, I had that prop zombie to high five, since their side did pretty damn good in comparison to the puny human survivors.

Lets face it, Left 4 Dead is a really great game. That’s why Valve was way beyond candid on revealing its latest sales mark reached.

Today, at Valve’s GDC presentation, it was revealed that their cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has now surpassed the 2.5 million copies sold mark since its November debut, which Michael Booth revealed today.

Valve has also revealed that the sales tally as PC and Xbox 360 sales, and they don’t count digital distribution sales.

Not so long ago we received news that a Left 4 Dead demo was on it’s way for the Xbox 360 and still we are yet to gain details on the game until now… According to Video Gamer, Gabe Newell, managing director and co-founder of Valve, told them at the Leipzig Games Convention some important details for the Left 4 Dead demo. Newell told them that the Left 4 Dead demo will include the first part of one of the four campaign ‘movies’, most likely The Hospital level that was demonstrated to the press. He also revealed that the demo will home online cooperative play as well as single-player, but he wasn’t able to reveal the release date for the demo.

“We will be releasing demos for both the Xbox and for the PC. I don’t know what the date is for release on that, though. I think it’s going to contain the first part of one of the campaigns. I think it’ll probably be Hospital but I’m not sure. That’s a decision that Doug Lombardi is making.” said Newell. Left 4 Dead is due out for PC and Xbox 360 on November 21 2008.

Valve Software announced today that there upcoming co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead will would be going on a trip around the world for it’s soon to come out world tour. These series of demonstrations will be held at very high profile events around the world these include Leipzig Games Convention (Germany),Festival du Jeu Video (France) and PC Gamer Showdown (UK), it’s set to make it’s grand debut at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

“The shared experience of Left 4 Dead is unlike that of any other action game,” said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. “That’s what we’ve experienced playing the game, and from showing the game to the press and our partners. It sounds cliché, but in many ways you have to play this one to truly appreciate what we’re attempting. So, to give gamers a chance to sample this new type of experience first hand, we’re taking Left 4 Dead on the road.”

Last week, rumors around the web started circulating that a PS3 version of Left 4 Dead is in development. Apparently that’s not the case, as a Valve spokesperson told CVG “There’s no PS3 version currently in production.” If you are a PC gamer and 360 owner you should rejoice. Valve is still developing the 360 and PC versions of the of the game.

Marketing man Doug Lombardi told CVG earlier this year, “We’re not PS3 developers – we’re doing PC and 360 like with Orange Box. EA came to us and said ‘Wow, Orange Box was an incredible project, can we do a PS3 version?’

“Left 4 Dead doesn’t have that guaranteed appeal yet – it’s a new IP,” Lombardi explained. “If you mention a new Half-Life, people want to make as many versions of it as possible. If Left 4 Dead is big, then we may see a PS3 version later, or if and when we do a sequel, people may be more interested in that.”

According to Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, Redwood Shore’s, which is in parthership with EA, are planning to release their sequel to The Godfather Video Game, The Godfather 2, “a few months” after the November release of Valve Software’s Left 4 Dead. This was revealed during an annual investor’s conference, which was held today, when talking about the upcoming roster of mature-themed titles. If the game is planned to be released a few months after Left 4 Dead that means it could be released in early 09.

Looks like our chances of seeing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 at E3 have been shot down by Valve’s marketing boss. According to an e-mail sent to Next-Gen.Biz, Valve’s marketing boss Doug Lombardi has confirmed with them in a e-mail Friday that the next installment in the Half-Life franchise would not be shown at E3 2008. But, he did confirmed that a playable version of Left 4 Dead will be displayed at E3.

In a recent interview Doug Lombardi( Valve marketing vice president) revealed that this upcoming multiplayer co-operative survival horror FPS game will be coming to the PC and Xbox 360 worldwide in November 2008.

In the interview he was asked if they would have a free weekend-This would give player a chance to play the game  through Steam then have a chance to buy it- He said that "We’re kicking around a lot of ideas now and nothing’s final" but did say that there would “definitely” be a free weekend with a very possible demo.

Valve believes in quality and even though “the game is pretty much playable all the way through right now” they still want to fine tune the game to make sure that it is “approachable to players of all skills.” Doug also commented that Valve is interested in branching out into other genres such as MMOGs and family-friendly titles.

Valve Interview Part 2: Left 4 Dead Demo Potential, the Evolution of Steam, and More [ShackNews]