Wut, have we played the same game? I remember HL2 as 99% linear shooter, with some ridiculously easy (and mostly pointless) physics puzzles thrown here and there.
3D-Coat seems to excel at hard-surface sculpting, and the educational license with 2k texture limitation only costs 99$: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3PHtDtdiV6-FlLmqu8OUCA/videos
I can't speak for everyone, but the sub-D stage is the mid-point. I use that mesh to generate the base high poly, and LOD0 by removing unnecessary verts/edges. Unreal generates usable LODs 99% of the time.
http://kotaku.com/5840901/fake-resident-evil-6-video LOL at Kotaku's foolishness. I'm 99% certain this is actually a real teaser trailer. I'm hoping for the return of old school Resident Evil!
New project, HP 99% done. Time for low poly, textures, materials. Renders are really simple and i could spend some more time on them, but i would rather create awesome renders for finished project.
It is free, and it is a full-use license. Terragen is superior, but you have to pay (admittedly only $99) for a commercial license, so it's a good deal if you can make money with it :P
ZBrush + Topogun solves 99% of my problems, hardsurface? just toss in max or maya for another minute after topo'ing. obviously depends on the specific prop but I love this workflow.