Combat Arms

A solid F2P online multiplayer first person shooter. The gameplay feels similar to the Counter-Strike style and doesn't make too many mistakes. In some cases the game has introduced mechanics that are different from a classic shooter and, at times, impairs the balance.

Combat Arms uses a system with optional microtransactions to ensure operation (NX). In the early years those were mostly limited to cosmetic options. However those options already offered a slight stat increase (slightly better accuracy on weapons, higher movement speed on gear), a trend that increased over the years to the point that best in slot items were generally not available to free players but only to users using NX, most recently locked behind random drops from a container, which in turn had to be purchased with NX.
While it is possible to compete against those players, the different starting points are clearly noticeable. (Especially movement speed)

You definitely can have some fun in the game, either as a single player or with a clan squad. The game offers the possibility for clans to fight other clans with team sizes between 4 and 8 in a relatively controlled environment. For single players, Team Deathmatch is the prevalent gamemode. Other modes include Free for All (all vs. all), Search and Destroy (defuse-style game mode, the community frequenting this mode is a bit elitist sometimes), Capture the Flag as well as some original gamemodes and cooperative PvE maps.

Its probably the best militaristic free to play FPS out there, which is not saying much considering the reputation of these games. That said, combat arms keeps the pay to win to a minimum, and the maps on offer are well designed and engaging. Unfortunatly it has a progression system that effectively rewards people that play the longest with better weaponry, which makes things even harder for newcomers.

I havent checked the scene in a long time, so things might be very different nowadays.