The release of Counter-Strike 2 will be looked back on in the future as a tale of Valve betraying one of the most important icons and communities in competitive gaming history. In a sickly calculated and manipulative tale of corporate greed, where NOBODY wins but Valve. The deception and theft on the part of Valve today only grows sicker, being swiftly covered up by mainstream gaming information outlets and the masses of short attention span tiktok gamers of 2024 who don't know better (and aren't a voice for the counter strike community we trusted Valve to care for), as Valve tactfully slithers and swims between the currently immature digital rights and laws around the world (particularly EU regulations which Valve has been infringing upon regularly), even breaking them where repercussions are unlikely or outright not severe enough to deter Valve in their mission.

Counter Strike: Global Offensive, a game not without its flaws, yet holding the title as the best and most important competitive shooter was STOLEN from millions of consumers who paid. In a selfish and deceptive move by valve to manipulate masses, the game that we knew and loved, the game that brought me to the steam platform, was "updated" by the inferior product that CS2 is. A game that comes with less features, less gamemodes, less maps, less tweakability (for god's sake we still can't change bob or left/right hand? I feel like a FOOL for thinking these were just oversights by valve during the beta), is less performant, stutters and suffers from framerate drops on modern machines, DURING MAJORS?
and could you guess, with all the things valve took from us, could you guess what they'd keep? that's right, THE REVIEWS from an entirely different game, an entirely different edition of counter strike, that for some reason, are now reviews of CS2? a completely different game? A sick move that valve knows would fly over the masses who don't know better, who aren't the professionals, the educators, the players with massive wealths of knowledge and experience in Counter Strike. Because that's not where the money is. The money is no longer there where used to lie the counter strike community, rather the new generation of children that Valve sees no problem with manipulating into gambling and this disgusting lootbox mechanic plaguing modern games.

Bringing Counter Strike to Source 2 was an opportunity to bring amazing new life into an ageing shooter. An opportunity to start a new era of competitive gaming. Bigger, brighter, more fair, easier to love. Better for everyone, the players, the mappers, community servers and gamemodes (who by the way have been completely disregarded by valve). Yet somehow this game caters to none of that. If anything, it caters to the cheaters, who seem to have a much easier time in CS2.

Valve went out of their way to make CS:GO as cumbersome and inconvenient to use and figure out as humanely possible in 2024. Even hosting your own server to play with friends has been intentionally made as cumbersome as possible. The server browser has now been completely removed. Somehow Counter Strike: Source remains more functional than the defiled state CS:GO has been left in. Better yet, the same seems to apply for Condition Zero.

I want my money back, the money I paid to play CS:GO, a game that has since been stolen from me, and any money I had been manipulated into spending while I was a child on cases/lootboxes, something that remains valve's primary money making tactic in this game, the number of nations declaring this illegal, ever growing.

I wish the best for Counter-Strike 2. These problems are more than teething issues, these problems are intentional acts of greed and negligence. Maybe some day I'll be able to play the game I loved so much again. As of right now, CS2 is not an acceptable replacement, it should have never aspired to be a replacement. CS2 should have aspired to be bigger and better, yet out of cowardice, Valve opts to replace the competition. To replace it with the game they knew is still a beta, is still inferior, is rampant with bugs, and lacks features.

You won Valve.

The release of Counter-Strike 2 will be looked back on in the future as a tale of Valve betraying one of the most important icons and communities in competitive gaming history. In a sickly calculated and manipulative tale of corporate greed, where NOBODY wins but Valve. The deception and theft on the part of Valve today only grows sicker, being swiftly covered up by mainstream gaming information outlets and the masses of short attention span tiktok gamers of 2024 who don't know better (and aren't a voice for the counter strike community we trusted Valve to care for), as Valve tactfully slithers and swims between the currently immature digital rights and laws around the world (particularly EU regulations which Valve has been infringing upon regularly), even breaking them where repercussions are unlikely or outright not severe enough to deter Valve in their mission. Counter Strike: Global Offensive, a game not without its flaws, yet holding the title as the best and most important competitive shooter was STOLEN from millions of consumers who paid. In a selfish and deceptive move by valve to manipulate masses, the game that we knew and loved, the game that brought me to the steam platform, was "updated" by the inferior product that CS2 is. A game that comes with less features, less gamemodes, less maps, less tweakability (for god's sake we still can't change bob or left/right hand? I feel like a FOOL for thinking these were just oversights by valve during the beta), is less performant, stutters and suffers from framerate drops on modern machines, DURING MAJORS? and could you guess, with all the things valve took from us, could you guess what they'd keep? that's right, THE REVIEWS from an entirely different game, an entirely different edition of counter strike, that for some reason, are now reviews of CS2? a completely different game? A sick move that valve knows would fly over the masses who don't know better, who aren't the professionals, the educators, the players with massive wealths of knowledge and experience in Counter Strike. Because that's not where the money is. The money is no longer there where used to lie the counter strike community, rather the new generation of children that Valve sees no problem with manipulating into gambling and this disgusting lootbox mechanic plaguing modern games. Bringing Counter Strike to Source 2 was an opportunity to bring amazing new life into an ageing shooter. An opportunity to start a new era of competitive gaming. Bigger, brighter, more fair, easier to love. Better for everyone, the players, the mappers, community servers and gamemodes (who by the way have been completely disregarded by valve). Yet somehow this game caters to none of that. If anything, it caters to the cheaters, who seem to have a much easier time in CS2. Valve went out of their way to make CS:GO as cumbersome and inconvenient to use and figure out as humanely possible in 2024. Even hosting your own server to play with friends has been intentionally made as cumbersome as possible. The server browser has now been completely removed. Somehow Counter Strike: Source remains more functional than the defiled state CS:GO has been left in. Better yet, the same seems to apply for Condition Zero. I want my money back, the money I paid to play CS:GO, a game that has since been stolen from me, and any money I had been manipulated into spending while I was a child on cases/lootboxes, something that remains valve's primary money making tactic in this game, the number of nations declaring this illegal, ever growing. I wish the best for Counter-Strike 2. These problems are more than teething issues, these problems are intentional acts of greed and negligence. Maybe some day I'll be able to play the game I loved so much again. As of right now, CS2 is not an acceptable replacement, it should have never aspired to be a replacement. CS2 should have aspired to be bigger and better, yet out of cowardice, Valve opts to replace the competition. To replace it with the game they knew is still a beta, is still inferior, is rampant with bugs, and lacks features. You won Valve.