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I thought Kinect was all about not using a controller"
It's basically a design choice: you can make games with regenerating health, with instant health packs, or both (Halo 1 actually had both health bar and regenerating shield. I'm surprised you failed to remember that because it brings the whole article validity into question). You can also have in your games consumable health packs which you can use when you want a-la Diablo, Bioshock and Postal 2.
Each has advantages and disadvantages, but you have to make sure the level design goes well with the choices you made. You mentioned HL2 for example and how scary it won't be with regenerating health pack, but let me counter you on this one: If HL2 had regenerating health it would save a lot of tedious searching for health packs inside crates and backtracking for health/armor stations which somewhat distracts from the actual game, it would have allowed Valve to create a more balanced gameplay because they would not need to worry about players starting an unfail encounter with low health, and it would allow them to actually create some fearsome enemies.
Because lets admit it: Gordon Freeman is a tank in HL2 and this doesn't make sense. He's not a trained army men like the guys in COD let alone a supersolider like the MC in Halo, but he can still withstand 2 direct granade hits, sniper headshots or tons of submachine gun rounds from a helicopter before he falls.
So HL has an excellent athmosphere which scares you at first, but most of the enemies in this gasme are not frightening in this game anymore once you realise how powerful Gordon is. You just need to make sure to collect the health packs at the end of each encounter. This is the exact opposite of Halo where each Elite is roughly as powerful as you are, and even the small grunts can score a one-shot kill with a sticky granade.
Will it actually make a better game with recharging health meter? Maybe, maybe not because there are disadvantages as well. But it all comes down to how good the developers are with designing and balancing their games, so both approaches can work well.
BTW, Try Gears 2 on a harder difficulty for example and you're in for one hell of a fight. I played on that difficulty level for the first time I played and can't relate to anything you say about this game."
If you take for example the 1up review blurb it has a score of 67 and says "There's no question that Crackdown 2 is a mere shadow of the first game, which stands as an absolute classic. The sequel feels more like an ambitious user mod than a true follow-up."
But if you click on the review, you will find out that the actual score for this game in 1up is B- (poorly translated into 67 in Metacritic), and the opening sentance says something very true:
To my knowledge, there's only one game in the world that lets you team up online with three friends playing as super-powered SWAT agents, make a rendezvous by leaping over skyscrapers, pile everyone into (and onto) one car, tear down the street at 100 mph (rendering a road-clogging zombie horde into a messy green spray), then crash that car into a terrorist hideout in an explosion that rips through most of the bad guys inside. That game is Crackdown 2, and for that reason Crackdown 2 is ridiculously fun. "
So there might be better games out there, and the game does look a bit rushed (project schedule was 15 months, but development time was actually 12 month according to Ruffian). But it does something that no other game in the genre does, so if you liked the first Crackdown (which sound like you don't from your criticism of the second game) this is the game to get."
Without revealing any spoilers, the most interesting plot feat of this game (something that I haven't seen in any other game) was the part near the end where you can choose between 2 courses of action: greed or revenge. But each path will lead to undesired results and a not-so-happy ending."
Because although other reviews mention that it's a short game , they still suggest otherwise. Somewhere around 3-4 hours"