The game that stands the test of time over and over again. I'll just hop right into the review with what are MY pros and cons to TF2, in 2025.
Pros:
1. Mechanics
The game is perhaps most well known and liked for its high-to-endless skill ceiling, from bunny-hopping, critical healing, juggling, rocket jumping, surfing, off-classing and more. Always room to improve means reason to play.
2. Lore
Now this certainly doesn't matter that much by my own omission, but I'll still mention it here for the sake of completion and I do love it. The lore of TF2 is even arguably now COMPLETE, with the finale of the comic series this month. While never having been necessary to enjoy the game, it only adds to the mayhem magic going on with the voice lines, or the announcer A.K.A the Administrator. If you are into comics or lore that absolutely breaks the realm of reality or instead of suspending disbelief, hangs and shoots it with buckshot.
3.It's Free
A free game, what more need be said?
4.Community
Only in Team Fortress 2, could you have a whole server of crouching heavies spamming medic and throwing sandviches at each other for 20 minutes straight between 24 players, while also offering one of the most competitive gameplay experience to this day. The workshop, and community servers kept this game alive even in the worst times in terms of active player-base and such common old multiplayer game ills. Many different custom game modes or rehashes of default ones. Many of the skins that get put in the game or community-made, and sometimes voted and picked by the community to be in the game through loot crates...
5.Cosmetic and cosmetics
The games cartoon-violence style and source engine physics leads to a game that very rarely feels the same when you kill someone, or get killed yourself. I have plenty of screenshots of my own death cam from where my ragdoll took me. A game that can make YOU dying a treat is doing something very right. Now staying on the matter of looks, this may split the crowds in disagreement a bit, but I 'll simply say I appreciate all the cosmetics in the game, but less so the loot crate system it perhaps popularized ahead of most other games and are born from. The amount of unique combinations and drip you can create is simply.... Unheard of, obviously owing it its age and time thus more content. but to bring it down now, in relation to the cosmetics...
Cons:
1.Money money money
I'm not going to pretend that Valve is unique in this regard or anything like that when it comes to money-making practices inside of their video games. But Team Fortress 2 can be seen as especially egregious to new players, and even old ones due to the inherent item unlock system for in-game items. Many ingame items are NOT just cosmetic, but offer differing play styles and occasionally, pretty much outright upgrades(tho this is certainly more preference than objectively OP, as the "stock" weapons are made to hold up to the best of the "unlocks"(weapons that have ingame stats different from stock) Now why is this in the money complaint section... Because of course you can buy these unlocks for 5 dollars PER CLASS, with 9 classes equals out to 45 dollars for ALL unlocks, and then not considering you need "backpacks"(just inventory sections you have to pay for)to hold all of them, its probably about 54dollars before tax to have the "complete" game to play. I want to be very clear:This is not the same as Call Of Duty and say, getting to level 28 and receiving a specific smg. You know from the beginning this was gonna be the gun at level 28, and worked towards it intentionally and expectantly. Team Fortress 2 does not do that, the item is RANDOM and based on a aged 5minute playtime drop system that limits the drops to I think 3 a day and a certain number a week I believe, so hard time-locked.
2. Skill Ceiling and Average Player
Whoever the average player is for Team Fortress 2 has certainly improved over these years, and you are hard-pressed to find a game that doesn't have some serious "carry" work from someone on each team. Or the poor new player getting farmed by aforementioned carries. Just natural "skill creep" or something like that with a game this old, but should be mentioned for sake of transparency. also, to keep it brief:Some toxic ass people play this game and love nothing more than to trigger and ragebait. Be warned!!! Just block them and ignore them, and enjoy the game.
3.Support? What's that?
I don't know the poor soul they got in the basement of Valve HQ pumping out these 5-50 Mb updates that include at most a slightly map edit for a new map released, and technical fixes not meant for regular players to understand. Not trying to hate on the developers still working on the game, we are eternally grateful. But lets just say it took a multiple YouTube and social media movements to force the hand of Valve to handle a bot crisis, where every game would be flooded with cheating bots designed to ruin the experience. The game clearly is not a priority, hasn't been for a long time, and is unlikely to ever hold a large amount of priority ever in the future,
4.Cheaters
You already know
Enjoy the game, and ty for reading this review. Goodluck out their soldier! Kick names and take ass!

Siege WAAAAAASSSSSSS good. There, qualifying intro so I can hate.
cheaters who say nothing and leave instantly at end... cheaters who do nothing but talk and try to convince themselves they aren't rejects from Heaven and salary. cheaters who try to whiteknight cheat but come off as even more unhinged than the initial cheater bait.... Ubisoft is evil and lazy, don't play this trash. This company doesn't deserve a dime for this pos, but they'll add 3 more "BLACK" ice skins like green and red. You liked packs right? have 4 at all, 1 you can earn, the rest all prem currency or siege cup(cheater infested, you will never win a siege cup legit, ever)Skins? Stealing skins and getting sued last year says enough. You thought Solid Snake would've been in the game from even a lore perspective before Thorn, but nah, games dying and we need hype! Bring in the reference and nostalgia with little to no meaningful influence on competitive!

This could go on, for probably at least 9 more paragraphs and 50 complaints. Disappointed suggests you had expectation. I haven't for so long, I'm just mad this company still exists.