Steam News is reporting the following for peeps who bought HL2 early. Yet another way the man can stick it to the little guy.

If you have purchased a copy of Half-Life 2, we are sorry you are still waiting to play. This is not Valves choice. Vivendi is insisting that the game has not yet been released, and has threatened that Valve would be in violation of its contract if we activate the Half-Life 2 Steam authentication servers at this time.

Thanks for your patience and we will update you when we have more news to share.