Recent reviews by Senfjunge

I think this game is really fun. It kinda sparks the same feeling that Team Fortress 2 gave me back in the day.
My biggest grievance is that it sometimes feels like the developers are immune to feedback: e.g. weapons and abilities that are considered OP by ALL top players aren't nerfed, and for one (3 month) season the replaced the ranked game mode with something else entirely without notice.
Would still recommend.

Counter-Strike 2 is the most botched game release I've ever seen. Valve thought it would be a good idea to have this title literally replace the prior installment "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" on Steam entirely, which would probably be fine if the game actually was a straight upgrade in every respect -- but it was and is far from that.
I won't write about the cut features, bugs, and other gameplay issues at launch which were most likely discussed to death in other reviews. These were largely added/fixed by now (except some alternative gamemodes -- most notably Danger Zone), but the movement especially still feels like a downgrade from CS:GO: you just can't consistently jump up onto certain ledges, many of which can definitely be relevant to the standard defusal-mode's gameplay.
On the other hand, the game's visuals are pretty good, and I really like change to smoke grenades. This review would likely still be a recommendation if Valve didn't try to memory-hole its predecessor.

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I previously (March 2024) complained about Counter-Strike's cheating problem in this review, which has has gotten a lot better since (on my rank anyway). For transparency's sake I will leave the original paragraph and conclusion here:
I think it would be a conservative estimate if I said that 80% of my matches in the competitive gamemodes were against some count of cheaters. That is players who will prefire you at the least likely spots, flashbang the most remote locations to try to get you, shoot you even before you turn a corner, or just spin-bot and headshot your entire team through walls.
In the past I thought CS:GO had a cheater problem, but Valve have actually managed to let it get way WAY worse.
Needless to say it is impossible to recommend this game to anyone in its current state.

This game is ♥♥♥♥