Valve took a big chance on creating a game that wasn't in line with its Half-Life franchise. Left 4 Dead presented players with a team-based game that still let them us their well-honed battle skills come into play as they worked together on slaughtering hordes of zombies that only got better as players got better. The formula worked, fans quickly snatched up the PC and Xbox 360 game and raved about it to their friends after its November 2008 release.

The company even delivered a free DLC pack to PC players, one that only made fans love it more. Of course, Valve's always been immune to doing things like everyone else and fans reveled in the developer's quirky and independent ways.

That was, until Microsoft's press conference before E3 2009 on June 1 where Valve announced that Left 4 Dead 2 was coming in November 2009. The claps from fans were almost immediately muted during the Microsoft press conference as fans asked, "why so early?" As they stewed and pondered over the announcement, fans boiled the announcement down into a tactic to merely make even more money while hype from the first game was still high.

On the day of the announcement, Steam members (Valve's popular download and community site) created a Left 4 Dead 2 boycott, and asking fans to voice their opposition to the game's until Left 4 Dead's player wouldn't be left without new downloads, maps and experiences. Since then, the list of boycotters is now above the 27,000 mark.

Valve did know there might be an issue and Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera, was the first to ask Left 4 Dead 2's Chet Faliszek about the issues in an interview that started with the statement, "People are pissed." Faliszek talked about the issues by saying that releasing maps and other content is something the team wants to do. Yet if the sequel's purpose is to sell a product and if there are significant changes to the game, then only time will tell if that actually happens.

This week, Valve's founder and CEO, Gabe Newell told Kotaku that "in addition to the recently released Survival Pack, we are releasing authoring tools for Mod makers, community matchmaking, 4x4 matchmaking, and more new content during the coming months for L4D1."

Right now, it's hard to tell how it will all play out. On one hand, Valve's a business that needs to make money, but maybe delivering the free Survivor update for Left 4 Dead set its expectations too low (or its good track record with Half-Life 2 DLC can't help). Or maybe, as Falizek claimed while talking with Ars Technica, that the team wanted a new location and still had a lot of new ideas, enough to warrant an early sequel. In the end, the answer might be in the middle, higher-priced DLC or full-sequel release, many fans might still argue that more Left 4 Dead in the world is never a bad thing.

Micheal Mullen is the Managing Editor of AOL's GameDaily. Over the past 14 years, he has written about video games, technology and celebs for ZD Net, GameSpot News and Electronic Arts.