Retailers in the UK have claimed to have a release date for the highly-acclaimed Half-Life 2 of November 26 in Europe, with a release in North America three days prior. Read for more information, including why this may not be the case.
 

Due to the legal battles between Valve Software and Vivendi Universal
Games, many speculated the title may actually miss the vital sales at
the end of the year, pushing it into 2005 and potentially lost revenue.
Keeping a tight lid on things, possibly due to the fact the game has
not been officially dubbed Gold even though a release candidate was sent to Vivendi on September 15, Doug Lombardi says "Unfortunately, I do not have a release date from VUG right now..."

None of this has been officially released as of my knowledge at this point in time.

Obviously this only means one of a few things if it's true.
1) Valve/Vivendi have reached an agreement to release HL2, putting the case behind them for sales this Christmas.
2) Valve/Vivendi are conducting business anyway, despite the legal case (as they say they would like to in the future)
3) Vivendi is trying to extend their status for releasing the game (they can hold it for six months after a RC has been accepted) and trying to buy time in addition to the six months, marketing ploy of some type, something like that~

Either way, I am awaiting confirmation from Valve themselves at this very moment, hopefully we'll hear something in a few hours, when I return.

and lets not forget, valve and vivendi don't exchange communications very well either.

VU says they never gave Valve a release date a year ago (Sept. 31, 2003).

Who knows if Valve will know the release date, I suppose I should contact VU later instead.

That's kinda laffable