Valve don't like to lead the player by the hand. Besides controls, you're either told what to do by other characters ("Stay off of the sand!") or left to figure it out for yourself. For example, they don't like "loot glint", that glossy shine on objectives etc. that says "this is important". Robin Walker says: "Let's just make a crowbar, and let the player see that it's a crowbar. It should be immediately obvious that they can crowbar things with it." Ditto with cover, pulleys, physics weapons, whatever.
Anyway, I quickloaded every time I missed a shot in that game, so I didn't find it too hard.
@Bungle: Yeah, Morrowind is always pretty cheap on Steam, and you'd be genuinely staggered by how much mods can resurrect that game. Alternatively, "Skyrowind" will probably be done in a couple of years.
EDIT: Also Dawn of War has a cover system, though I'm not sure what Nepsotic's trying to prove.
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