Well, I purchased a month of
ESEA, and I was extremely disappointed. It is only seven dollars a month, but I would never buy it again. Here is why:
1. The players aren't that great. ESEA's main pull is that if you play ESEA you will play with the best people in the world. If that's the case, then the best players in the world are pathetic. While I don't totally own, I don't see players that are any better than players I can find in any pub. They are slightly more frequent, but no better.
2. Most of the people in ESEA are small children. They will belittle, berate, and pick on you for no reason at all. They will call their own teammates useless or noobs and will cuss out the other teams. They will turn even forum posts into mindless, childish quarrels. You can see, I posted
this thread here with legitimate suggestions and actually got about -10 karma just from that one post. Petty, stupid, and pretty indicative of the type of people you will see on a regular basis in ESEA. Basically, most of the people there are little bitches.
3. People care too much about their stats. I played in a pug the other day on dust2 where no matter how many of my CT teammates were alive and how close they were to the bomb, when the bomb was planted they ran away and hid. People will abandon their teammates in the middle of a firefight specifically for the purpose of having them die so they can try to clutch and mop up all the kills. The stat system actually makes team work almost nonexistent.
4. The servers suck. ESEA buys pretty low-quality servers. Most clans have better pubs. Hit registry is non existent.
Bottom line: Poor servers, poor players, poor atmosphere, poor attitude, poor organization. Would not buy again.