Quick question regarding giveaways and game mods...

mods? did you mean like counterstrike where it uses the HL Engine?

Well i mean it is a give away and you dont own the game anyway so i don't see anything wrong with it.

Wow, someone who's actually got a sense of morals on the internet! My opinion is that you WILL be using the game, or at least the game engine, which is close enough. So you're not using it how most other people would... you're still using it. I'd say go for it, but if you're super concerned still, you could contact the giveaway creators and ask them personally if they will allow it.

Hmm... that's a tough one...

Personally, I would say go for it. I'd let it for any of my giveaways. I'd prefer you at least give Half-Life a decent go at some point (presuming you haven't before and just think it's not your style of game), but I'd be happy to let you in if you needed HL for the mods.

Half of the people entering will do so just to add another game to their library, or they'd try to trade it or something if they won, or they just enter every giveaway they can just because. You would not be adding to that number. You actually want the game for yourself and will get use out of it. That alone makes you a much worthier recipient in my opinion. I'm referring to public giveaways, of course. I'm pretty sure private and most group giveaways have a better entrant base. That said, if I were gifting it, I still wouldn't have a problem with it going to you anyway, private giveaway or not. I'm always glad to put things into the hands of people who will love them and use them, no matter in what way they choose to do so.

Video game developers have discovered around around 10 years ago that all gamers have OCD and must collect EVERYTHING!
Thus DLC was born. Damn you DLC! Yes, you must obey the OCD and enter.

I'm not positive, but I believe any game that needed HL2 would need it for the Source SDK, which you can now get for free. I'd google it, but I'm just not going to.

If you're talking about Source Engine Mods - not Goldsrc (HL1) - then for a lot of them all you need nowadays is Steam. :)
More accurately the mods that are based on "Source SDK Base (2007)" which should be in your tools tab in your Steam library. Most of the mods that are available for download through Steam fulfill this requirement.

I got Episode 1 and 2 so I can play Nightmare House 2.

I say go for it.

Thanks for the comments, everyone - I think the general consensus here is that it's alright, so I'll go ahead and close this now. :)