Overall, an amazing game by Valve and presented by Steam, but some new features disappoint even loyal players.
Offensive:
Soldier(United States): a general infantry unit armed with a rocket launcher, shotgun, and a GI shovel. He can Rocket jump by jumping and shooting the ground beneath him with the rocket launcher.
Scout(Boston or Brooklyn, still debated by fans despite Valve saying he's from Boston): Despite his minimal health, Scout is extremely fast, can double jump, and captures points twice as fast as other characters. Scouts weapon set include a shotgun, handgun, and a baseball bat.
Pyro(Unknown): The Pyro is a mysterious character. No one knows what he looks like behind his gas mask. Pyro is equipped with a Flamethrower as his primary, shotgun as a secondary, and an ax as a melee weapon. The flamethrower does bonus damage to its victims as they continue to burn until they find a source of health or jump into a water source. this is especially helpful in finding spies. If a spy is disguised as an ally he'll still burn if lit on fire while actual teammates are safe from any harm.
Defensive:
Engineer(Texas/Southern US): The Engineer is primarily a defensive character. He builds Sentry guns, Dispensers, and Teleporters. He uses scrap metal to build, repair, and upgrade his machines. His loadout is an Shotgun, Handgun, Wrench(also vital to upgrading and repairing machines), Builder(when taken out the player choses the building in which he wishes to create) and the destroyer(when used, the engineer can demolish any of his buildings, usefull when you wish to redeploy a machine in a different area) The enigneer can als pack up his gear and relocate it by right clicking on the building.
Heavy(Russia/Ukraine): The Heavy Weapons Guy is a slow but extremely powerful character. Toting a minigun, he has 200 rounds to mow down any character in his path. Secondary weapon is a shotgun and he melee at attacks with his bare hands.
Demoman(Scotland): Demoman has the most colorful language in the game. In his own words, he is a Black Scottish Cyclops. Its unknown how demoman lost his eye, but he sports an eye patch in its place. Demoman (short for Demolition Man) is armed with grenade launcher, a sticky bomb launcher, and a bottle as his melee weapon(Valve shows its off color humor with another Drunk Scottish Stereotype). The sticky bombs can be deployed at up to 8 at a time and are detonated with the right mouse button.
Support Units
Medic(Germany); The medic is one of three support units. His primary weapon is a Syringe Launcher. The syringes don't fly straight and almost immediately start to drop. It is recommended you arch your shots. The Medic's main use is his medigun. This secondary weapon is used to heal allied units. Even after the unit your healing has reached full health, you can continue to heal him and he'll gain temporary bonus hit points. The medical gun also has an ubercharge gauge. When this fills up to 100%, you can deploy the ubercharge for invincibility to you and the ally your healing. The Ubercharge's effects also depend on the medical gun your using. Medic also has a bone saw for a melee weapon.
Sniper(Australian): The Sniper is another off color character. Deploy him at a distance from the front lines, but he should still be able to target enemies as they approach. His main weapon is a sniper rifle, his secondary is a sub machine gun, and he melees with a Kurkuri knife.
Spy(France): The spy is a difficult character to use. He has two weapons to use, a revolver and a Butterfly knife. Normally, walking around as a spy is suicidal due to his low health and weak defenses. However, the spy has a wristwatch cloaking device and a disguise kit. The spy can slip behind enemy lines while cloaked and can disguise himself while in the enemy base. However, beware what units you target. Once you attack the enemy, you'll lose your disguise. The Spy also has a sapper, which drains the power of an enemy building when attached. When a spy, beware of pyros, they are typically used to "spy check." They'll go around roasting any suspicious ally. If they burn, they continue to attack that character.
The game Itself:
Team Fortress 2 isn't a serious First Person Shooter like most similar games. KDR isn't an important stat to most gamers, and usually isn't even recorded. There are numerous game modes. Payload involves Blu team pushing a bomb to the intended target while Red tries to prevent them from reaching it within the time limit. Payload race is a race to get your bomb to the target before the other team. King of the hill involves one central capture point and whoever controls it for a certain total amount of time wins. Capture points is a back and forth game where the goal is to capture all five the points leading from your base to the opponents. Both teams own the first two points and they must fight for the central point. From there they must take the opponent's points one by one in order to win. Scout captures points twice as fast. Attack/defense is a mode where one team is on the attack while the other tries to defend their own capture points. Once the attacking team takes a point, it is locked and the defending team cannot retake it. Capture the flag is as simple as it sounds. you must enter the enemy's intelligence room and bring the suitcase full of intel back to your own intel room. Meanwhile the opponent is trying to take your intelligence. A balance of offense and defense works best. Special Delivery is one of the newer modes. It is similar to a one flag capture the flag. The key component to a warhead is located at a halfway point and a ballistic missile at another central point. Your team must recover the component and place it in the missile's nose. Meanwhile the other team must prevent the prevent the loading of the warhead and then capture it for themselves.
New Feature, Mann Vs. Machine: In this mode, a team of players goes head to head against a massive army of robots based off of the TF2 Characters. The robots attempt to deploy a bomb at your base while you try to stop them. Unique power ups can be purchased using money, which is dropped by dead bots. While there is a free version of the game, certain items are unlocked through another version, which requires the spending of money to buy tickets to play the game.
Mann Co. Store: Team Fortress 2 has an immense amount of items which include weapons, hats, and numerous special effect items. These items can be unlocked through in-game achievements, general gameplay, or can be bought in the Mann Co. Store. In order to purchase anything from the Mann Co. Store, you must use actual money. Characters have weapon sets in which when all parts are equipped, the character receives certain bonuses. Most sets cannot be completed without purchasing items through the Mann Co. Store.
Special Benefits for buying the game instead of downloading: Those who bought the game can trade any item. Free to play downloaders are restricted on what items they can trade.
Wrap up:
Pros: relaxed gaming style; humorous, unique characters; Many game modes; free to play through steam; customization is easy; user created servers offer interesting and unusual gameplay in custom maps; Offline play is possible when players cannot connect to Steam.
Cons: Despite being free to play, you miss out on features if your not willing to pay for them; minimal benefits for people to paid for the game over those who downloaded it; XBox and Computer players cannot play each other(PC users connect to PC servers, XBox connects to XBox servers)
The Final Word: Overall, a solid game from Steam and Valve. Despite my bitterness over Valve trying to force the gamers to spend money on the game instead of letting a free game stay free, TF2 will still be a favorite of mine.