Nah. I prefer when it ends with a fade out, a scary music and a message appearing on the screen.
After you decline to step into the portal there is this black screen with text “OBJECT TERMINATED” and “POST MORTEM”, so it’s a good clue that Gordon is dead at that point 
because hl2 actually exists, I agree with JeffMOD, it was irelevant what gordon decided to do… the G-MAN says at the end of hl2 “rather than offerring you the illusion of free choice this time, I will pick it for you” (or something like that)
Obviously that’s because when you’re offered a choice between life and death, you’ll naturally choose life, unless you’re suicidal.
I think that implies that even declining the offer meant a scare for Gordon and then he goes into stasis anyway.
And Bur, considering what Gordon just went through, considering what he knows (and doesn’t know) of the G-Man, I’m not sure I’d say Gordon would have to be suicidal to refuse. Many people would rather die than do some things, like act as a pawn for someone who apparently was responsible for the Black Mesa incident, the deaths of your friends and co-workers, and who now apparently is planning on using you further. There are many things worse than death.
If he was fighting for his life to get out of there, I really doubt he would give up and die as soon as someone gives him the option to get outta Dodge.
If he could even trust the G-Man and frankly going after the Nihilanth was a suicide mission. You’ll note Freeman didn’t just try to get the hell out of Dodge during the course of the game. And going to Xen was probably the most suicidal move possible, in terms of likely never coming back, if you want to think of it in that sense.
Edit:
Well, actually, that would count as death, wouldn’t it, just a rather painful and prolonged death?
Ah right, how silly of me to assume any human would die from that
Wait, you ARE talking about Gordon Freeman? The crowbar dude?
…
…
Yeah, he’s not human. He’s half-HEV, half-red-metal-grade-paint, half-xen-rock.:freeman: <-is a lie! CONSPIRACY!
Yeah, but Freeman was a scientist, not an idiot. Every reasonable man would have step into that portal. Death is ALWAYS the worst option, unless you are suffering from a strong enduring physical pain.
I guess most of the players the first time played HL have stepped into the portal.
If you are going to keep saying that people wouldn’t rather fight for self preservation when they have no reason not to trust the GMan, then I will be forced to remove your soap box.
I don’t know if this has been suggested or not before but, what about when you shoot the itchyosaur, or even when a dead corpse falls in the water, you can see blood in the water for a short ammount of time? A la SMOD. 
It would add a nice effect to the game, and in the case where you’re trying to kill an itchyosaur, for example, you could know if you succeeded the shot or you missed it. I found it very annoying in HL1 when I couldn’t clearly see the itchyosaur and I shoot everywhere to be sure to shoot him.
I love that idea. I’ve seen it in a few games and it works really well. I don’t know how you’d do the Icthyosaur though. If it was underwater and constantly moving about, any blood that came from it would dissapate too quickly. The blood coming from bodies sounds reasonably easy to do though.
I remember seeing it the first time I played Far Cry and a body fell in the water. “HOLY SHIT THAT’S AWESOME!”
That would be pretty cool, and useful.
A la scarface, not SMOD
For corpses and wounded creatures/guys why not but for localising the Ichtyosaur, its useless since it’s not the goldsrc engine and you can now see through water or liquids.
Your fractions. They amuse me.
I wasn’t going to say anything, but the British 'roach has a point. Three halves.
In some of the patches for HL, rockets fired above water and sent into the water sometimes spurt sparks, which looks really cool.
Will the BM RPG have bubbles or something come out of the back instead of smoke when in “Torpedo mode”? (underwater)
The friction of the water would probably detonate it instantly if you tried to fire an RPG under water. If you fire it into the water it detonates on the surface.
In Half Life you can fire the rocket launcher underwater.