This was a good game back when it came out. Sure it was a little lacking in content but at least the core game was good. That core game for me was the terrorist hunt mode. I never enjoyed the multiplayer in this game, but the coop mode was really good and kept me coming back.

Then at some point, a few years after the original release. The people in charge of this game, drank an entire bottle of pure alcohol and lost every single one of their brain cells. They decided that the multiplayer community needed a gamemode to practice for their multiplayer matches. The only way to provide this service was not to create a new mode, but to butcher Terrorist hunt and turn it into a pathetic shade of it former self.

They removed every single challenge in the Terrorist hunt mode. Nitro cell rooms and the occasional lone nitro cell were removed. All barbed wire was removed. Suicide bombers were removed. The amount of blood was greatly reduced. The amount or renown that you get from Terrorist hunt was greatly reduced and the max renown for solo matched was capped to 36. The word terrorist was entirely removed from the game and the mode's name was changed to training grounds. I guess they didn't want to offend terrorists. But I understand, you wouldn't want to offend any terrorists, they're a group of people just like any other and want to be treated like everyone else. Making a game where terrorists are the bad guys was really in poor taste. I really care about the feelings of terrorists AND YOU SHOULD TOO!!

The absence of these features made the game really boring. I had many fun and challenging games before this change and now every game is just kinda dull. Suicide bombers were difficult enemies, yes. But they made the game so much more fun, especially when playing with friends. This change had also an impact on the effectiveness of the operators. There were always some operators that were more useful that others but now they made several operators completely useless in this mode. Thatcher's EMP grenade could destroy nitro cells and render suicide bomber temporarily ineffective. Now he has no unique ability anymore in this mode, rendering him completely useless. Thermite's unique ability was to breach reinforced walls. Not only have they given similar "unique" abilities to new operators but they've added a basic equipment that does the exact same thing. This renders Thermite completely useless. Blitz has a shield that can flash enemies, making it easy to clear crowded rooms. Unfortunately, if an enemy is standing further than 5 meters away, the flash won't work on them, making this ability completely useless. IQ has a tool to detect explosives. With this tool she can detect bombs, nitro cells and suicide bombers. Unfortunately the last two were removed from the game, greatly diminishing her usefulness. Those were just the original operators that were affected by the butchering of Terrorist hunt. There is a long list of new operators who's abilities don't work in this mode. This makes the recruit better than most operators, since he can choose from every piece of equipment in the game and has the option to use an LMG, among many other weapons.

Instead of improving Terrorist hunt by adding the ability to vote on maps and gamemodes, so you don't have to play protect hostage 8 times in a row, adding more enemy types and stuff to make every operator more useful. They removed features and made the AI much dumber. Protect Hostage has become an incredibly dull experience because they removed every single challenge and made the AI retarded. This is not how you should treat your costumers Ubisoft. I understand that the multiplayer is popular, but that doesn't mean that you have to destroy the gamemode that I enjoy. You could have easily just added the ability to choose whether you want certain features to appear in the map or not. If you had done it that way then everyone would be happy. Now nobody is, because you destroyed my game for the sake of the multiplayer community. And this newly created "Training Grounds" isn't even a good way to practice for multiplayer matches because the game still plays completely different and most operators' abilities won't work.

Why did I call this game a swindle? Well, it's simple really. They advertised a certain product, I bought this product and it worked as advertised. Then, over time, they changed the product so it no longer contained the features that is was originally adverised with and no longer had the features why I bought the product. Enough time had passed and I had played the game long enough to no longer be eligible for a refund. So, in the end, Ubisoft swindled me out of 90 euros and they got away with it. Great Job!