While great in its heyday, micro-transactions and a ridiculous amount of useless items and twice-a-day 'updates' have destroyed what was once easily a five star game and my favorite of all time. Half of the players in any public game will be sitting idle or trading to earn new items while you're trying to enjoy a supposedly unmatched team-based experience.

If you want my advice, play on vanilla servers with friends-only, and fuck off with the hats and other nonsense. Valve will make their money back ten-fold from those less intelligent users paying for what is actually FREE content. Or you can just play Left4Dead 2 instead and have a way better, albeit paid-for experience.

2 stars for costing nothing and being developed by a true bar-setting and quality-driven company, but otherwise - bad form Valve.. bad form. I really used to cherish this game.