Valve Software has always been known to be good at keeping secrets. They usually don't give out any info unless they want to or someone breaks in steals the code.
But when they do release some information it is usually done in some kind of sucker punch style. Information is given out at the least probable time to the least probable source.

This time it was Doug Lombardi's turn to surprise us all with some new info on Half-Life 2: Episode 3. During a Left 4 Dead interview with Kikizo Doug decided to answer a question on Episode 3.If you dig a bit deeper and look up those release dates, this leaves us with a timespan of at least two years between Episode 2 and 3. Add the usual delay and you arrive at 2010. On a positive note he did say that they might just show us something at the end of the year.

2010?! Kill me now! Also, what is 'play as Gordon' supposed to mean? Do we get to play as Alyx in Episode 2.5?

In other news: