You can't criticize Valve, it's not allowed.

>>750568013
Seems like the best idea they had was shutting off their on-Earth access and hoping that the wider Combine doesn't care enough to come back. They certainly weren't putting THAT much effort into enforcing their rule, being pretty much entirely reliant on local auxiliaries.

Combine forces are blocked on earth at the end of Ep2, no reinforcement can come from other dimension, so it's easy to end the combine plot in the next game

>>750568013
The goal is to either keep them from being able to return to earth or keep any invading forces in a stalemate that would prove earth to be more trouble than they're worth in conquering.

Erik Wolpaw writer of HL Alyx said they changed the ending of Ep2 with Alyx taken by Gman because Combine are blocked on Earth

>If you remember Episode Two, they had closed those portals,” Wolpaw said. “So really what’s left on Earth of the Combine are all there is left of the Combine.”

>With no more portals, the Combine are stuck here with us as much as we’re stuck here with them. They can’t escape, but no reinforcements are coming. So that story has the possibility of coming to an end sooner than maybe fans had assumed.

>“You need to start thinking about shifting some of the focus to something else,” Wolpaw explained.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/10/21212241/half-life-alyx-ending-explained-discussed-g-man-gordon-freeman-half-life-3/

>>750568013
>Is beating the Combine even possible?
No not really. And if you go by the leaked description of the 3rd episode, it even goes onto explaining just that.
They go on some big adventure to send a nuke into the heart of combine space, only for it to be a mosquito bite against the might of their stelar empire.
With Gordan feeling the futility of it all, just before the G-man comes to take him away once again.

>>750569612
I'm surprised he actually addressed the Episode 2 superportal plot. I fully expect the enemy faction in HL3 to be Combine-only again