Half-Life 2 is annoying me

So I still haven't beaten it yet, but it seems like every time I want play for 30 mins or so, i have to download a patch, or an update to steam. If not that, then steam takes forever to connect so the time I was going to play gets cut short. Like now, I wanted to play some at 9:45, 30 minutes later its still updating.

I actually want to beat it so I can finish some of these other games I haven't beaten, like RE4. Its really cool, yet I'm still not more than 30 minutes into the game because I keep playing other things :( I need to make a list, and just go down it till I've beaten everything on it I think.