Are you seeing this because you are intrested to buy it on a sale? Don't even read further and get it right away for these few $ it is worth. Still curious? Let me explain why my hours for this game are so high.

This game has a very active modding scene who created a variety of different gamemodes. Unlike the name deathmatch tells you there is plenty of other things to do making it fun for everybody. The community is great and in many places very helpfull. They will sort out bugs you have or simply teach you how to play the game. You should definately buy this game! Expand the review to learn about its gamemodes.

(Team) Deathmatch
Servers : Common
Sub Types : 1v1 , Matches , Bots , Variety of gravity's , KillBox

As the name of the game indicates this is the original gamemode of the game. There are many different kinds of maps. Killbox is mainly a box where you can hit about everyone with some stuff for you to mess with. Other maps can involve a variety of sceneries (Mappers like to use there own themes instead of just City 17). There is still an active competitive scene so if your up for 1v1 matches dig around and you can surely find them. Some servers often killbox like to turn the gravity down for some low gravity fun.

The gunplay is what i call "Unbalanced". This means that some guns are clearly superior over other guns and you will have to focus on getting better weapons from the moment you spawn (Quake style but not as extreme). If this is not your thing just continue reading because there are plenty of modes for you to find.

The most populair frag video from a well known clan : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtJgwl0EfgU

Cooperative
Servers : Common
Sub Types : Exclusive maps to some servers, Multiple gravities, Exclusive Weapons to some servers, Dual Coop

This is my personal favorite mode. Infact i like this mode so much i built an entire server[www.bouncyball.eu] around it.

In cooperative maps you work together with your team to destroy the aliens of the singleplayer game (Combines are broken). Additionaly some of the maps give you challenges similair to the physics puzzles in the original game or allow 2 teams to mix cooperative with the deathmatching (Both examples are rare as most maps are normal cooperative).

Here is some uncut gameplay from my server to give an incidation of what the gamemode is like : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxjxStzUAv4


Puzzle
Servers : Common

The name says it all. You are put in a map where you have to complete a set of puzzles in order to beat the map.
The puzzles you get a very varied and can involve anything from finding a path in a minefield , driving airboats along a track , building your way to the exit or hitting targets with a specified gun. Puzzle map creators are very creative in the challenges they think up so each map will have its own unique challenges to beat.

Puzzle map gameplay : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUVN46I_TYw


Roleplay
Servers : Common

Roleplay is another fan favorite for many people of the game. It is cops and robbers style gameplay where you buy and sell your items and on alot of servers you can even buy and decorate your own house. Personally i did not play it much so my review would probabbly fall short of the possibility's in these servers.

Probabbly not the best vid : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o54-ZKvVP8A

Surf
Servers : Rare
Sub Types : With or without weapons (With is more common)

Surf is something adopted from the counterstrike community. It all involves trying to surf down a track of slidey walls and not falling of the sides. On most maps depending on where you failed you get placed in a deathmatch box with a better weapon then those who failed before you.

Surf Gameplay : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuexNobUAS0

Trick Jumping
Servers : Medium Rare

These maps are similair to Surf in the way that you are trying to get from A to B. They mostly do not involve gunplay of any kind. Instead of sliding along walls you have to beat jumps of increasing difficulty. While fun on its own this is also often used to train for better movement in the deathmatches.

Hard Trickjump Gameplay : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEeuAHpI9l8

Zombiemod
Servers : Rare
Sub Types : Hybrd with zombie survival , Straight up killing

While there are zombiemod servers they are not always around as these servers run different modes and the type of zombiemod also depends strongly on the server you play it on. Other servers usually have a bigger deathmatch focus and no npc's but since i only play it on mine i will tell you how it goes on our server.

The round starts with everyone as a survivor where you fight unlimited npc zombies in a set time. Once someone fails and greats beaten he will join the other team and only have a crowbar. Zombies are slower then survivors by default but are the only team that can use the spint ability. Survivors win by surviving long enough while zombies win by making sure all humans are dead.

In case you want to play it and no other servers are running zombiemod you can join our server bouncyball[bouncyball.eu] and vote for one of the zombiemod maps using !jb.

Deathrun
Servers : Rare

In deathrun one team tries to run from A to B and the other sets off traps to stop them. There are a vareity of maps all with there own set of traps.

Gameplay from the most populair deathrun server : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYEpKmfEAz8

Scripting / Cheating / Building
Servers : Rare
Sub Types : Cheating , Building using server commands only
Wait what? Cheating? Hacking? o.O
Why would anyone want to do this?

The answer is simple. Using cheats and "Hacks" very cool stuff can be done in the engine. Do not expect these servers to be overrun with aimbotters (although some people will kill your godmode protection off). This is all about creating great things with the cheats in the game or your own custom addons.

Sadly all good videos of this have been removed but a quick summery of some stuff i saw : Giant Mechs (Working) , Space invaders remade , Dokuman attack , gm_flatgrass turned into a forest , Gigantic volcano jump challenge that will explode in a cool manner when beaten.

The possiblity's are HUGE!

Conclusion
I probabbly missed alot of gamemodes as these are server experiments. Think about FreezeTag or extremely modified servers.

The server in this video has been remade entirely and most of the things shown are no longer there but it is a good indication of how crazy the game can get : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCmgRmg92Yo.

It is also worth mentioning that as you can see in the above vid servers have a lot of control over the gameplay as they can program new features themselfs using the addon support for the game. Think about things such as statistics , jetpacks ropes and hooks , teleports , midget mode and many more.

I hope my insiders view gave you a good insight in why this game is so well loved as the steam store page simply does not cut its job. The game has its drawbacks that in the past it has been ruined by valve quite a bit (And then fixed by valve and the community for the most part). Because valve does not look at this game very often the description and screenshots on the storepage are simply acient and you can experience some bugs and crashes. The more populair servers will do anything they can to provide a sollid gameplay experience so no worries.