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If you check the Steam bestsellers, you’ll probably come by Half Life 2: Deathmatch as one of the more popularly listed multiplayer games ever to be bought. Today it retails for USD $4.99 and that’s easy cash money to plop down. But did you know you can get it for FREE?

That’s if you have an NVIDIA or ATI video card. There’s a big chance that you (or a friend) probably has one tucked inside his gaming rig.

For ATI graphics card owners

For NVIDIA graphics card owners

Actually, the fine print is a “First Slice” promo for a demo version of Portal. It just happens to come with HL2: Deathmatch and The Lost Coast chapter from Half Life 2. The latter is an experimental map to test out the once-new HDR rendering capabilities which Valve put into the latter HL2 and Source-based games.

Why is this sort of a big deal? If you bought The Orange Box, you might have noticed that you get a pretty good deal with Team Fortress 2, all the Half Life 2 episodes, and Portal. What you DON’T get is the Deathmatch mod. I made this oversight when I bought the package back in 2008, assuming that DM was part and parcel of Half Life 2.

Well, now you have every reason to save five bucks.

This is something I haven’t tried, so do tell me if it works: if you don’t have any of these two video cards, try logging into Steam from a friend’s computer that has these cards. Try purchasing it from there and see if it works!

Oh, and if you’re wondering if people still play this 2004 classic, YES. Servers are plentiful!