It may lack some of the community niceties, beloved maps (Assault, anyone?), and little features of past games, but Global Offensive delivers on the promise of a faithful, polished, and better looking Counter-Strike for whoever wants it. Even if the community doesn't meet the golden standard of 1.6 and Source, CS:GO will remain a multiplayer classic for those willing to put in the time to learn the maps and weapons.
It's culled the crap, brought new content and tactics to a near-perfect series, and focused on community. It's got an extremely bright future ahead of itself.
A fast, demanding shooter with a huge potential for the future. It's basically CS: Source, but the maps are more polished and the game looks better. [11/2012, p.64]
The developers haven't created a new game. Even though Global Offensive has some small innovations, it's mostly an adjustment of a well known game to today's standards. After a few hours I felt some kind of relief, that Valve kept the good old CS intact, but then something hit me. There are no radical changes – only a very obvious lifting, and this series is in trouble. CS:GO is a great game only because the original CS is a great game. If you're not a fan of this kind of gameplay, don't buy Global Offensive – it offers nothing more.
Every time I launched CS:GO this week, I couldn't help buy feel like it was a step backwards in my gaming evolution. It's new, but it's entirely familiar as well. The learning curve is shallow and I know I'm probably going to enjoy it before I even start.
Global Offensive takes no chances and it's hard to tell who it was made for. Source and 1.6 players will feel at home with the tried and true CS mechanics and traditional game modes, but GO gives them few reasons to migrate, other than flashy graphics on a few of the old maps. Conversely, newcomers to the series will find Counter-Strike's steep learning curve rather discouraging.