Technically, you can't finish it, but what the hell:
Team Fortress 2:
+ Very lovely art direction, the 60's spy movie look meshes well with the cartoony, Pixar style of the game. Each of the nine classes' silhouettes stands out, even from a distance. Memorable character designs, lovely hand-painted textures.
+ Different game-modes allow for different experiences each match. Very well designed maps offer different routes for every class.
+ The community/developer relation is very nice, always communicating with the fans and players. A lot of community-created content is added to the game, via maps, weapons, cosmetics, and even item descriptions. Speaking of fan-made, there are numerous custom game modes for the game made by modders, and many are very fun to play.
+ Each class feels nice to play, with their unique abilities and unlockable weapons allowing diverse gameplay options. Different weapons and tools for each slot encourages exploration of play-style and trying new ways to play with each class.
+ Despite being a F2P game with a cash shop, nearly every item can be attained just by playing the game.
+ Very humourous character chatter, the game never takes itself seriously.
+ Team Fortress 2 is very beginner friendly, offering many ways of practice, with training modes for a few of the classes, along with offline practice modes with bots. Many tips are given throughout the game's loading screens, menus, and even while you are waiting to respawn.
- Balance between the nine classes is rather...unbalanced. While I understand some classes play the role of a hard counter to one another (e.g: Engineer with Scout), some classes that shouldn't be countering out-right counter against their weaknesses (e.g: Heavy's Huo-Long Heater provides defense against the Spy, one of the Heavy's worst nightmares). Spies in general have a very hard time doing anything these days, with nearly every class having a way to counter Spy. Demomen are not very balanced, either. While initially meant for area denial and sentry nest destruction with their stickybombs, they can be extremely effective against everything. Pyros and Spies feel very underpowered, as well, with 8 out of 9 classes having ways to extinguish the afterburn from his/her/its fire-based weapons or outright nullify it.
- Item distribution amongst the classes is off. One class, the Soldier, receives too many weapons compared to the other classes. The Engineer and Medic are nearly dried up ponds compared to the Soldier's constantly flowing stream of items. The Demoman also receives alternative methods of play via shields and swords, often referred to "Demoknight". While enjoyable and offering new ways to play, it eliminates the Demoman's weakness, close combat, and offers a way for one of the slower classes to move almost as quick as the fastest; the Scout. The Demoman, as of this post, has three grenade launchers, two stickybomb launchers and one practice stickybomb launcher, three shields, one parachute, one pair of boots with an alternative skin, and eight unique melee weapons. Again, while fun, the Demoknight playstyle diverts from the games balance, giving the Demoman arguably better close combat skills than the class actually meant for close combat, The Pyro.
-Many added weapons and cosmetics often clash with the TF2 color palette, or out-right do not fit in with the style, with the promotional weapons and items from other games being major offenders. Many paint tools used to recolor cosmetics are not even from the color palette:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73559
Above is a guide for creating items and props for the game, along with the color guide to the game, made around the time the Polycount contest was happening.
This is a Pink as Hell painted Ye Olde Baker Boy, a wearable hat for the Scout. Do you see pink anywhere in that palette? While it is nice of Valve to add further customization choice to a player's characters, they clash against the very same rules Valve made for the game four years ago.
- The game has some bugs, sometimes very game-breaking. Luckily, Valve is quick to patch the more enjoyment-threatening ones.
- While many of the maps are very well-designed, others have rather questionable decisions. The map Dustbowl is an Attack/Defend map broken up into three parts, two capture points each. The defending team, RED, usually has to defend for half an hour per point, sometimes even over half an hour if a point is captured. This problem is not on other Attack/Defend maps such as Gorge or Mountain Lab. Another map, Hightower, is a Payload Race map, where RED and BLU push bombs through the others' bases in a race to blow their bomb up first. The map often ends up in the equivalent of Team Deathmatch, with neither side pushing towards their objective, due to no time limit.
- Valve has trouble with adding any non-cosmetic items into the game, apparently. The most recent update, The Love and War Update, is the first time TF2 has gotten non-reskin weapons in nearly two years.
- Valve also has a habit of adding in many new game modes, but never supporting them. Territorial Control, Special Delivery, and Medieval Attack/Defend each only have one map.
Overall, Team Fortress 2 is, at the core, a very fun game. It can be enjoyed by just about anyone, from a more casual gamer to a hardcore competitive player. Though the past few years have had some questionable content additions and decisions, Valve has not failed in making an enjoyable, good-looking first person shooter.
Overall:
9/10
