All that happened to me was uh like 5 minute startup screen. It does it like every time though
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Yeah.. they should really allow people to turn off the 3d menu backgrounds =/
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from steam forums >
If you want to speed up the loading of the game menu go here man.
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\username\half-life 2\hl2\cfg
In that directory you will see a valve.rc file. Open it with notepad and you will see the below (and some other stuff) within the file.
// display the startup level
startupmenu
Rem out the startupmenu by adding // in front of the word startupmenu. You will notice that HL2 loads much quicker upon startup (to get to the game menu). The only downside to this is that the picture in the background will not be clear and interactive with motion (as it is by default). It will be blurred. However it should at least help you load it up (at least the menu page) much quicker.