Valve will never release Half-Life 3. As in, they will never release a Half-Life game by that title. Beat that name out of your mind already.
Do a little mental exercise: what do you expect from a game with that exact title? What technical revolutions do you expect to see? What graphics do you expect to see? What level of imperfection would you be willing to accept? What story do you want to see? Whatever it is that you've conjured in your mind around this title, Half-Life 3, do you really expect that it's something that Valve will ever release? And most importantly: do you think that by calling HLX "Half-Life 3", you're not holding it to the standards of that conjuration? Because you do, subconsciously you do, and that way you're setting yourself up for disappointment. And if you keep holding every new Half-Life installment to that standard, you'll burn your interest towards the series out, and by extent, Valve will lose interest in keeping the series alive if nothing they release lives up to fan expectations.
Just let go of that name, leave it be, it died 17 years ago. Instead, be happy that we're getting a new Half-Life game, and expect just that, a new Half-Life game. Not Half-Life 3. The sooner this name is laid to rest the better for Half-Life as a whole. There have been enough examples in history how expectations around a brand name that people held were the bane of new products that were otherwise fairly decent, just because they didn't live up to the predecessor's name. Learn from them and forget about that name.
