NS isnt ruined... Its actually alot better. There is a new gameplay mode called Combat. At first i didnt like the idea of it, then i played it. Now i love it. Imagine Marine VS Marine and Aliens fighting Aliens! Well, there are servers with these gametypes. Lots of variations in gameplay all over the community just like these. And of course there are still tons of "standard" NS and "standard" Combat servers as well. [meaning nothng changed other than updates/changes made by the creators] And there are different weapons to use as well. The marines have grenades, the lerk has a bite weapon which everyone who plays lerk uses. [its actually kinda scary sometimes to see them flying directly at you, instead of hiding and using the GAS all the time] And various other changes. Overall, i enjoy it alot more. New content added, map changes, which are ALL good, tons of new stuff.

Now... the only down side to the entire game, is that it requires Steam. I have never had lag problems before since i have had cable and DSL, even ever since i played Tribes 1 [tribes 2 sucks BTW] but since i have played NS through Steam, i usually have a little. Steam takes up even MORE system resources [as if XP didnt hog enough!], so now even my 1.3 hghz machine with 256 megs of ram has lgameplay problems when playing through steam. And when i played some old NS just through WON servers... no problems- And i have spent many a night trying to get help from the forums. Problem is Steam hogs resources, thats all... So, just a heads up.