The game is fantastic, however: When you have a match full of players with brand new accounts, out fragging seasoned veterans, you know there is a serious problem.

CS:GO faces somewhat of a cheating epidemic, and Valve refuses to tackle the problem effectively. Valve's decision to change an already sought after game - for cheaters - into a free to play, was mind-numbingly stupid. If you are one of the lucky few, holding a high enough trust factor for this change to not directly affect you, know it adversely affects you. Recently, for example, Overwatch has become overwhelmed by spinbotters. I reviewed several dozen Overwatch Cases, every single demo had a spinbotter. Thus, these free to play spinbotting lobbies, are lessening the likelihood of other cheaters receiving the ban hammer. I know several cases of players who went weeks, to even a couple of months, cheating with publicly available, paid software, before receiving a ban.

Further, Valve's attempts at tackling cheating, have been to put it lightly, completely unsuccessful. The introduction of "Trusted Mode" served as little more than a couple-hour coding barrier for cheat developers, before it was completely bypassed, yet it lowers the game's quality of life, by preventing legitimate programs, such as OBS, from hooking onto the game and capturing one's screen.

Another example of such failings is "Trust Factor", a conceptually solid premise, however, one which was horribly executed. Any good player will end up with a low Trust Factor, unless they are a known professional, it is an inevitable fact. False reports lower your Trust Factor; even once you go to Overwatch and through an innocent verdict, are cleared of cheating, your Trust Factor still remains in the dirt. It is truly staggering how badly this system has been implemented and managed.

Additionally, let us not forget the automatic mute system now in play: When one is reported, even falsely, by their opponents, through them ticking every report box, the game will automatically mute the reported player (after enough of said reports) with zero checks for if they actually committed the offending behaviour; putting a black mark on their account (through a default muting of the player for all). Thereby instilling an assumption of guilt for hacking/toxicity in their teammates and opponents alike, from the very beginning of the match.

The game, at its core, is excellent however, easily the best competitive FPS available. If you manage to climb to a decent Trust Factor (near impossible as a good player) or play on third-party services such as FaceIT/ESEA, you will have a substantially better experience. As a player wishing to indulge in Valve's matchmaking; be it Wingman or Competitive, know you will encounter some cheaters (though likely far less than you believe - dependant on your trust factor) you can however take solace in the fact that: be it in days, weeks, or God forbid, months, said cheater will be banned. Thankfully, with under a week being the average length before these vermin are revoked access to the game.

In conclusion, there are less cheaters than you may surmise you are facing in your matches, however, this by no means detracts from cheating still being a huge issue. Once Valve decides to improve upon their already existing systems, such as Trust Factor and Overwatch, alongside further developing the anticheat. This will, in my opinion, become the best FPS game ever made.