1 star because Steam won’t let me rate in emotional scars

2,000+ hours. (1.1 console, 900pc) I could’ve learned a language, mastered an instrument, or healed from childhood trauma. Instead, I learned how to jiggle peak a doorway while my teammates mentally unzipped their pants and team killed me for existing with 2 more kills than them.

You think this is a tactical shooter? No. This is a psychological experiment wrapped in an anti cheat placebo, duct taped to a treadmill of rage and sarcasm. The devs say it’s about strategy. Reality? It’s about who can swing harder, faster, and more erratically than a raccoon on bath salts.

Let’s talk audio….oh sorry, I meant the haunting whispers of regret. It’s surround sound if surround sound came with gaslighting. Hear a guy above you? Surprise! he’s below, no in your walls, actually he’s already teabagging your corpse with a victory charm he got from logging in during operation health. My headset wasn’t backwards. My hope was.

And then there’s the operator reworks. Remember Blackbeard? He used to be a meme with a glass jaw. Now he’s got a riot shield taped to his dreams, runs through walls like a Kool-Aid man with a vengeance, and beams you with an AR while air thrusting yelling get sum. If you suck, you pick a shield. If you’re cracked and sadistic, you also pick a shield. It’s the circle of toxicity.

Oh, and realism? Don’t even. Sledge is Master Chief now. Dude’s cosplaying Halo with a gravity hammer, breaking walls and my will to play. Blitz looks like he stepped out of Warframe to show me what Hiroshima saw a half second before God closed the curtains. Fiinka , who I’m pretty sure is undead now, juice boxes her teammates to super soldier status while rocking a skin that makes you question if this game’s still rated M or if it descended into one of the 9 gates of hell. Then there’s Glaz, our heat seeking Soviet Terminator. He sits outside, scoped in like he’s IRS auditing your life decisions, waiting to ruin your round and possibly your relationship. Meanwhile Ash is still doing Ash thingsno hitbox, no brakes, and no remorse. Full sends a site like a chihuahua that heard a doorbell.

And let’s not forget Ranked, aka “Social Darwinism with packet loss.” There’s no such thing as fair matches. You either queue with a hacker from Kazakhstan who crash lands your game with 40 kills and a bad mic, or you get matched with 4 actual potatoes and an 8-year-old with Bluetooth audio delay. Hidden MMR? Yeah it’s real. And it works against you. You’re not gaining elo, you’re digging through drywall with a spoon while the cheaters have jackhammers and dev skins.

This game didn’t fall off. It tripped, broke its spine, looked up and said ‘worth’, then monetized the ambulance ride.

And yet… I still play. Why? Because therapy is expensive and nothing humbles the soul like being flashbanged 8 times by some Asian chick, and your team screaming at you for breathing wrong.

Would I recommend it? Only to people I deeply resent or to my future self when I’m feeling a little too mentally stable.