Before the update I would've said that both CSGO and VALORANT were worth playing, as both games were highly polished, mechanically sound, and were stable in their performance. Now, I can't say that. If you're looking for a good TAC FPS, this ain't it. Not anymore, not until they fix the glaring issues.

For some reason the characters are now stickier than ever. You will stick on your team mates at random times, for no apparent reason. The movement whilst feeling more grounded also feels off. I was not a fan of the CSGO ice skating movement, but this is somehow worse. Jumping feels off, you can't chain jumps to bhop anymore, and your character feels heavier than ever.

The shooting feels weird now, but that could be caused by the underlying performance issues the game is plagued with and the weird movement. They removed all war games, so no more arms race, flying scoutsman or demolition for no reason, and they made the games shorter (now they last the same as VALORANT matches) without adjusting the economy to reflect the changes.

One last thing, whilst the visuals are better now for the most part, everything looks oily. I can't describe it in any other way. Some textures look very oily, it's off putting. The best example would be the default CT knife, and also the shirtless T character model. The maps look good, but some guns and characters look like someone dropped them in olive oil.

All in all, I say go play VALORANT if aesthetics and "realism" don't matter to you. For now it is the objectively better game. Until VALVE fixes the issues with CS2, play something else. If you don't like VALORANT cuz of the abilities or aesthetic, I get that, but CS is no longer a substitute. Play CSS or 1.6 or Warzone, CS2 just ain't it. It has the potential to recover and to become a game as good as CSGO and VALORANT, but it's not that now. Come back in a few months and see if it got fixed, if not stick with something else.