Valve has famously maintained a high standard when it comes to game releases, with almost all of their titles receiving generally or even overwhelmingly positive responses from players. But while Counter-Strike 2 is admittedly behind in that regard, there’s still one game that’s worse, and probably will always be worse.
At the time of writing on Oct. 1, CS2‘s recent player review count on Steam is made up of 68 percent positive reviews out of a total of 164,203 reviews in the past 30 days, which qualifies as Mixed. That number still includes reviews from the final two weeks of CS:GO, though. The actual CS2 player review percentage is even lower, with only 59.1 percent positive reviews since the game launched on Sept. 27.
While this is certainly below the bar from what is expected from Valve, it is not the worst, but it’s quite understandable if you completely forgot about the worst. Artifact, the Dota 2 trading card game made by Valve, has a 46 percent positive review score all time, making it the worst-rated Valve game on Steam.
To say Artifact, which looked to compete with other digital card games like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, was doomed from the start would be unfair, but it’s hard to imagine a game’s lifespan starting off any worse. Valve teased a new game back in 2017, with an official reveal promised during the Dota 2 International of that year. Expectations were high, but when the trailer concluded with “Artifact: The Dota Card Game,” a collective audible groan of disappointment escaped from the TI crowd.
Fans grew disinterested or displeased with the game due to its $20 price point combined with greedy in-game purchase selections, among other issues, and the player base dropped off significantly in a matter of months. While Valve initially was working on a 2.0 overhaul, it stopped development due to player disinterest but made the original game and the 2.0 beta, known as Artifact Foundry, available to play free to play.
The release of CS2 has run into some obstacles in launch issues and player resistance, which were to be expected given such a massive change to an iconic game that’s been around for a decade. As a result, player reviews have been considerably more negative than some of Valve’s other signature titles like Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, and games from both the Half-Life and Portal series.
There has been a spike of positive reviews alongside more negative ones as well, and as the game continues to ship out more updates and fixes, the recent CS2 review score should steadily climb over the next few months.
