Black Mesa is the most over-praised piece of shit mod I've played in a long time. For something oozing with so much polish it's amazing how little of it works. I played the version they're actually selling for real world monopoly money and it retains many of its issues the original mod did while introducing more.
For any who have forgotten the game had serious issues with AI that can snipe you from across the map with the same weapons you have a significant cone of fire for. The redesigned maps seem to want to introduce some of Valve's more modern design trends but is way too inconsistent in this regard. Additionally performance is way too all over the place for the Source Engine. It seems a mix of retard-polygon counts and shader effects that were not optimized for Source as well as the lack of geometry culling in certain areas makes the framerate tank below 40 in one spot of a room and jump to 200 just a few feet away. Whatever your thoughts are on the music it appears that in the version I had, the music simply does not work. There's numerous fixes listed by developers such as the ever-useful restart your PC, restart the game, delete a cache file, reinstall the game, do all of this while restarting your PC, and none of which work. The devs acknowledged it in 2016 and have yet to fix it in the latest version and there is currently no fix. This is also for all ambient tracks as well, not just the music.
Speaking of said new music, I'd like to talk about the direction of the mod. It doesn't have one. In one sense it feels like it's trying to refine/modernize HL1's designs to be more in line with EP2 style designs. In another sense it feels like it's trying to be faithful but prettier. In another it feels like it's trying to change the pace of the game by adjusting ammo values or reload times. Tie this all together with inconsistent health values so they go down as easy as HL2 enemies but do even more damage than HL1 enemies all while introducing weird tracking issues to some of their attacks where they simply won't target you or will not acknowledge you while their buddies run around trying to get you. It wants to remake Half-Life but it has no fucking clue what kind of remake it wants to be. I'm fine with faithful ones as it's fun to run through the same game with a new coat of paint - as well I enjoy new takes which reinterpret the original in a new way, but fucking stick to one and just one.
I've heard these complaints voiced before for the original mod but I wanted to check to be sure but it appears that everywhere else it gets universal praise. Even for the paid version where none of these flaws are acknowledged.