The internet has been ablaze with mixed reactions to Valve ever since the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2′s release later this autumn. Fans of the original are up in arms over the fact that they are putting out a sequel only a year after the first. Many believe that Valve will abandon Left 4 Dead, which has turned out to be a very popular staple in the 360 library.

“We obviously listen to the community a lot,” said Doug Lombardi. “That’s one of our staples. Did we anticipate it? No, we didn’t, but I think that one of the key things is: announcing Left 4 Dead 2 doesn’t mean we’re abandoning Left 4 Dead 1.

“Another thing is it’s important to remember that E3 is where you go to announce new titles, specifically titles that are coming to retail. We do press there, but it’s not really a venue for announcing DLC or mod tools.

“So I think there was a little bit of confusion that we created unintentionally, by announcing a sequel and not having the complete story ready: announcing it and not saying, there’s still a lot of stuff being worked on for Left 4 Dead 1, and the mod tools will work with both games.”

All new characters are a good thing.

“We plan to keep supporting Left 4 Dead 1,” Doug Lombardi told CVG at a press event in London today. “There will be some announcements coming before summer’s out about what’s coming there, and then we haven’t shown everything that’s in Left 4 Dead 2 yet.

“I think 8, 9 months from now once everything’s been out for a while and everyone’s had time to see the complete product of Left 4 Dead 2 and see continued support for Left 4 Dead 1, they may sort of see what we were up to and what the method of our madness was there.”

So fervent has been the reaction, the online petition asking Valve to cease and desist plans for a sequel reached 40,000 signatures. Unfortunately, the fans didn’t seem to have called each other to organize the revolution: Pre-orders for Left 4 Dead 2 have doubled those of the original game.

If you have any interest in Left 4 Dead, negative or not, check out the cornucopia of new screen caps.