Review temporarily changed to negative for the time being.

This is my favourite video game of all time. I've enjoyed playing it in all sorts of forms for a little over a decade now, and it truly is one of the best multiplayer games out there. Unlike many modern FPS games, TF2 feels like it's the last casual game out there. A game that you can simply pick up, hop in a match, and engage with the mechanics. It's not about winning or losing, stupid ranking points, or stomping people as a 6-stack. It's the deepest, best crafted, silliest experience out there.

That being said, this game has been left in a state that is completely unfair. Ever since the Meet Your Match Update in 2016 and the introduction of Casual Mode, serious issues have plagued the game. The Casual Mode system often causes matches to be unfair with no autobalance, cause players to leave matches early, disincentivize community servers, and queue times that can last as long as the matches themselves. All of these issues have compounded with the waves of cheating bots that have plagued the game for last 5 years or so. These bots make the game nearly unplayable. Think about how a new player would interact with the game for the first time, attempting to join a casual match, waiting for a long time only to be met with 8 bots on each team, making the game unplayable and causing them to requeue. This first impression is exactly the opposite of the joy and pure fun I felt when I loaded up my first game in the Badlands a decade ago.

As long as Valve continues to profit off of this game through the new crates three times a year and the Steam Community Market, they must provide a working product. It is simply unfair to monetize off of a broken experience. I know it may seem like a long shot that a busy dev team would service a seventeen year old game, but it's worth a shot with how many people still care about this game. Even the CS2 community is feeling considerably neglected with similar issues at this time.

I'm not asking for the Heavy update, new weapons, or even the final issue of the comic. I'm simply asking for this game to get the treatment it deserves as such an impactful, ground-breaking game that others still struggle to capture the whimsy of. Hopefully I'll be able to change this review back to a positive one someday.

#FixTF2 #SaveTF2

Review temporarily changed to negative for the time being. This is my favourite video game of all time. I've enjoyed playing it in all sorts of forms for a little over a decade now, and it truly is one of the best multiplayer games out there. Unlike many modern FPS games, TF2 feels like it's the last casual game out there. A game that you can simply pick up, hop in a match, and engage with the mechanics. It's not about winning or losing, stupid ranking points, or stomping people as a 6-stack. It's the deepest, best crafted, silliest experience out there. That being said, this game has been left in a state that is completely unfair. Ever since the Meet Your Match Update in 2016 and the introduction of Casual Mode, serious issues have plagued the game. The Casual Mode system often causes matches to be unfair with no autobalance, cause players to leave matches early, disincentivize community servers, and queue times that can last as long as the matches themselves. All of these issues have compounded with the waves of cheating bots that have plagued the game for last 5 years or so. These bots make the game nearly unplayable. Think about how a new player would interact with the game for the first time, attempting to join a casual match, waiting for a long time only to be met with 8 bots on each team, making the game unplayable and causing them to requeue. This first impression is exactly the opposite of the joy and pure fun I felt when I loaded up my first game in the Badlands a decade ago. As long as Valve continues to profit off of this game through the new crates three times a year and the Steam Community Market, they must provide a working product. It is simply unfair to monetize off of a broken experience. I know it may seem like a long shot that a busy dev team would service a seventeen year old game, but it's worth a shot with how many people still care about this game. Even the CS2 community is feeling considerably neglected with similar issues at this time. I'm not asking for the Heavy update, new weapons, or even the final issue of the comic. I'm simply asking for this game to get the treatment it deserves as such an impactful, ground-breaking game that others still struggle to capture the whimsy of. Hopefully I'll be able to change this review back to a positive one someday. #FixTF2 #SaveTF2