Counter-Strike 2 Has Nearly a Million Negative Reviews on Steam
Counter-Strike 2 isn't going over well with fans.
Counter-Strike 2 is not being received well by fans. Valve is one of the most respected companies in gaming. It established itself a few decades ago as a promising developer making games like Half-Life. However, it quickly evolved itself beyond a beloved developer into a gaming giant by launching Steam, the leading PC gaming platform. Since its inception, thousands of games have been released on Steam and allowed for players to trade things with each other, socialize, organize all of their PC games in one place, and more. Sadly, Valve has stopped making new games as consistently as it expands into supporting Steam, existing games, and making revolutionary hardware like the Steam Deck. There is the occasional Valve game still, but they're few and far between.
Nevertheless, fans were surprised when it was confirmed that Valve was making Counter-Strike 2. Its aim was to be a new and improved version of the game fans love and allow players to carry things over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It would receive fancy new upgrades to the visuals and ideally just be better game all around. Unfortunately, fans don't see it that way. The game officially launched a couple of weeks ago and it has over 900,000 negative reviews on Steam. Fans are upset with the stability of the game citing frequent crashing, the decision to erase CS:GO from Steam along with its Steam achievements, and much more. Fans have also claimed that it is an unfinished game with less content than its previous entry. One user compared it to having their furniture removed from their home because Ikea thought they'd like a new chair better than the one they bought: "Ikea never came in my house while I was away to replace my black chair with a yellow armchair they thought was better! It's not an update, it's a different product! Put my purchase back in my library!"
Counter-Strike 2 does have a "very positive" overall rating on Steam, but that's because it carried over the reviews from CS:GO. In reality, the recent reviews for the new version give the game a "mixed" rating overall. Fans have called this out in their reviews and claimed it is a dishonest representation and would result in a publisher like EA or Ubisoft getting a ton of flack.