The Game
Counter-Strike is a Multiplayer First-Person Shooter Video Game which was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation. I have personally been a huge fan of Counter-Strike for many years now, and it is easily my most played game overall on steam now, with currently 1223 hours played. (I think I have played my fair share). But even though there is a lot about the game that obviously keeps me playing, there is still a few problems that Counter-Strike has which still need to be addressed.
Community
The community is one of the main reasons that I really enjoy playing Counter-Strike to this day. Yes, there is a range of different players that you come across, but at the end of the day, if you run into people that you don't like, then you can always choose too block communications with them, which will mute them, or you can choose too kick them if they are just being aggressive and/or griefing. When playing Counter-Strike it is really the luck of the draw the type of team you will get. There's a chance that you will get on a team that is full of Russians that just run around screaming their heads off and rushing the B bombsite, or you may get some lovely people who communicate well and actually give call-outs that help you. Sometimes you may get the odd player on your team who just shoots you in the back because they want too be a pain and woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sometimes the Counter-Strike community can be really terrible and you will get into games where the entire enemy team are calling you hackers, or you could get into game where the enemy team just want to be friends and knife fight in mid. (Or say they will knife fight, before pulling out their guns and shooting you). But it is really refreshing when you manage to get into a game with some friendly people and you just have a good time. Personally, I like to play with a group of friends (or as many as I can get) this is due to me wanting to have the best experience and knowing that I can mess around with my friends knowing that they wont try to kick me if I don't manage to clutch the 1v5 that i have been left in.
Casual
Personally I don't really enjoy the casual game modes for Counter-Strike. They are great if you are a new player and you just want to play the bare bones game and are just playing for the sake of playing or to try to improve yourself then this may be a good place to start. However even then there is the community servers which you can use if you want to practice within free for all servers, or head shot only servers or even just want to surf or bunny hop. There are lots of different custom game modes that people have made within the community servers section.
Competitive
The games main game mode is Competitive which includes a ranking system that you need to try and work your way through from Silver to Global Elite, you need to win games to go up the ranks, but if you lose games, you can also go down. This allows for the game to try and match you to players of your own skill group. There are still some problems with this system though, as it makes some players want to create second accounts (smurf accounts), so that they can play against easier players or because they want to play with friends, due to the not being able to queue with players that are a much higher rank, or lower rank than you. Every now and then you even run into Hackers within the game. I feel as if the number of hackers has decreased from what it used to be, however I do still bump into one every now and then.
Skins
You either love them, or you hate them. Personally I do enjoy skins, I feel they are a nice refreshing look to the game and they add a slight bit of variety to the game. Skins can either be brought from the steam market, you can unbox them in a crate or you can have a potential chance to get them as an in game drop. Skins revived the Counter-Strike community and many people believe that skins are the reason CSGO is still alive today. Every now and then in an update, Valve release a new case within the game. To unbox these cases you either need to get a case as a drop in game, or you need to buy one of the steam market. Once you have done this, you will then need to purchase a key to open it. Once opened you will get a random skin from that case collection which depending on the rarity, will be a different price on the market. If you are really lucky, you can get a knife skin or a glove skin from the case, which sell for a much higher price than the other skins in the case.
Operations
Operations are one of the greatest features of CSGO. Operations are seen as mini limited time offered DLC's. They last for a good few months, and then vanish forever. Each operation is different from the other. Operations usually include a set of playable missions as well as some new maps that you can play competitively. You can play all the missions if you or someone you know has the pass to this operation, but you can play all the maps for free by just searching for them. The main benefit to the operations is the 'Coin' which will start as bronze and then as you level it up, usually by doing missions, you will increase the coin rating from bronze to silver, to gold and as recently added in the new operation diamond. To get this coin you will need to pay around £5 and will keep the coin forever, but will lose access to the missions and maps once the event is over. Some people don't like this as you are technically paying for it, so you should get to keep it, which I agree makes sense. But im still a sucker for this kind of thing and love to do it. You also get drops from these operations which will sometimes earn you the price you paid for the operation pass back.
Overall
Overall I feel you get what you put in with CounterStrike. If you can enjoy the game for what it is and play with a group of friends it is a real great laugh! However, if you go into game by yourself, and don't communicate with anyone then you may find the game hard and rather boring at the same time. One of the best types of experiences is communicating with the players that you get on your team. I also feel that Valve really need to Update or change the VAC system to try and decrease the Hacker rate even more. But overall, it's a game that I have sunk so many hours into, and I can't see me stopping anytime soon.
References
-Nesbitt