The title may be a bit extreme, but one of the best parts of the regular coop experience in Left 4 Dead is the final stand and the precursor stands that occur in earlier maps. What sucks the fun out of the game is a technique or strategy, and no I do not think it is an exploit (why later), that gives a much greater chance of surviving the massive infected attacks - closets.

I'm using closet here very generally. The technique will work with any room that only has one way in which to enter. At the end of Blood Harvest it may be the closet on the first floor, but it might also be the bathroom at the top of the stairs. By positioning two people kneeling at the entrance with the other two people standing behind, preferably not ones with the automatic shotgun, you can fend off the mob with great effectiveness. In fact, if the two people kneeling in the doorway will spam the shove, even the special infected (excluding the tank) are not a problem. When you realize the tank is coming you quickly leave the closet and make for more open spaces. Once the tank is dead you resume your spots in the closet until the second tank comes. (why I don't like this after the jump)

 

The technique may be effective but it removes the frantic rush that makes Left 4 Dead such a fun game. These stands are no longer the highlight of the game as they were intended to be. In the developers' commentary for the first one of these battles (the final battle in the demo) they noted that these intermediate stands were added because playtesters found the last stand to be a great experience and wanted more. Unfortunately the closet technique lowers these fights to the point of not being exciting as exciting as the average trip down infected infested streets.

If you wonder if I'm being too critical of the technique, think about the stand at the elevator in Mercy Hospital. Would that stand be as fun if the infected could not break through the walls on the left and right and had to come straight down the corridor? I don't think so, and I doubt most of you do either. Even Valve noted in the developers' commentary that the breakable walls were specifically added to make this stand more exciting.

But at the same time Valve had to have recognized the possibility of using this technique before the game was released. Why would I think that? Because these rooms are removed from the versus mode. You cannot hole up in the bathroom at the end of Blood Harvest because the bathroom isn't there. Likewise, on the roof of Mercy Hospital, the closet in the radio room is missing, as are the stairwells. The map changes are a clear indication that Valve understood that the players could use the closet technique and wanted to prevent it in versus, so I don't think it is an exploit.

But I do think it takes a lot of fun out of the game. I have used the technique and even advocated the stairwell as a defense point for No Mercy's last stand. But I found my interest in the game waning. Now that I have gone back to a more open defense, the game has become a lot more fun again. In part I saw this because of the versus matches with the good folks here.

So, I would like to see an update that mitigates the closet technique. My preferred solution would be to make it so that no room had only one way in. This would be done in many cases by making at least two walls breakable (or already broken) similar to the elevator stand in No Mercy. But until then, when I'm playing the campaign, I'll be advocating a more active defense than hiding in the closet.

But if the Zombie Apocalypse should actually occur, I'll see you in the closet.