I hate this game but i cant stop playing it

♥♥♥♥♥♥ development team of a bad company focused more on microtransactions and making a grind of more magnitude and less reward than runescape 1-99. Battle ratings and matchmaking are arbitrarily assigned where world war 2 era vehicles will often see cold war era equipment with teams being inconsistently compromised of germans flying american aircraft, for example, which is a nightmare in itself in simulator battles. At the same time, previously mentioned premium vehicles offer an obscene shortcut to the artificially fabricated grind to unlock vehicles. The "Grind" is made worse by Gaijin's implementation of multiple currencies consisting of Research Points, Silver Lions, Golden Eagles, and Crew Experience.

For anyone considering this game because its free to play, DO NOT GET INVOLVED.
This game is not worth your time for the sink that it is.

Over 230 hours in Steam, and much much more over the launcher later, I have come to the conclusion:

This game will entirely, and fully, change you as a person. It will destroy your mental stability, force your money out of your wallet while you're still fresh, and then keep you playing as a sunken cost fallacy. The fun factor is very limiting, especially with the last updates, which add new stuff, yet make it nearly unreachable for players who don't actively invest hundreds of dollars into the game.
This is, as far as I know, the only game which ACTIVELY PUNISHES you for playing it. Even in battles with a K/D over 1 you will most likely lose SL if you are playing on high tier ... unless you buy a ridiculously overpriced vehicle or premium account. Even with those bonuses, the grind is extremely long. After literal years, I managed to grind only ONE tech tree, and not even in its entirety. Only to see my setups destroyed by BR changes.
The economy is the worse of the worst. Vehicles are overpriced and take long to research, and then for some reason you have to research and buy modules that are already installed on your tank. You cant even properly repair or put out (more than one) fires without the modules. And everything takes long to grind and will empty your SL pool. But don't worry, you can always buy it for gold and waste your hard-earned real money on something that would give you a barely playable vehicle.
The balance of the game is also very bad. Sealclubbers in low tier, hackers in high tier. Vehicles with thermals fighting vehicles from the 40s-50s. People shootng through houses and hills. CAS with guided munitions team-wiping all allies. If you play CAS, you get pilot sniped from 20km. You respawn in a tank and die to a UAV. You spawn in a UAV, fly for 15 minutes to the battle, then die to AA. You get sent to hangar after a gruelling battle to see that you lost 12k SL as a result. And then you grind your teeth and push that "To Battle" button yet again, hoping for it to be different. It won't be.
Every good aspect of this game is covered up in its entirety by the bad ones. For every pro, there are 10 cons. All the graphics are good for is to see your plane/tank gracefully explode after yet another unfair death.
Sometimes they have sales too, which allows you to buy vehicles not at "ridiculously overpriced" price but at "highly overpriced" price. Wonderful news for you, little Timmy, go get your mother's credit card. You'll get good if you buy this vehicle. Or the next. Or the next.
Someday you will deinstall the game. And then you realized that it was for nothing. You wasted time and money on it, and you aren't getting it back. All you can do is weep and try to move on, only for your addiction to return after a month or two, as you sigh, feed the snail your last 20 bucks for premium time, and begin the cycle again.
If you are new, you're free to have some fun. But if you don't stop soon, you will not be able to later. If you're an experienced player with a long playtime, I'm sorry.
The snail giveth, the snail taketh away.