CS2 is fine and it feels like CSGO, except the nades were updated. If you want to go nostalgic you can go play the other CS games.

I understand preserving a game is important, but this isn't a single-player game, this is a game that they have to continuously host and manage, which costs money. Valve wanted to update the game, and they probably didn't want to have 2 games fighting each other. You can be mad at their strategy, but CSGO was a free multiplayer game (yes yes it was $15 or $20 dollars years ago), and they decided to change it into an updated free multiplayer game.

If you want to call them scummy because they slightly changed a game you paid for, go for it. Never buy another Valve product and go exclusively GOG.

Having said all that, I would be on your side if and only if we were talking about a single-player game that does not need to be managed 24/7.

Replacing csgo with counterstrike 2 so its broken launch could be covered up with a decade of positive reviews for a different game and guaranteeing people won’t be able to play the previous after an indefinite amount of time was pretty scummy, for one.

People would be way more up in arms had it been a completely new game where none of the inventory transfers over. Recent reviews are still "mostly positive" and traditional CSGO is still available, just unsupported. I dislike it myself that practice with bots and a friend currently no longer works in CS2 but enabling csgo_legacy wan't that much of a deal for me.