With 500+ hours in this game, and a lot of experience, I highly recommend you buy Midnight Ghost Hunt. You play as either a hunter or a ghost in a 4v4 battle. As a ghost, your job is to possess props, and find clever places to hide, while the hunters have a 5 minute time limit to find you before midnight strikes. When that happens, you gain the advantage, and the hunters become the hunted. There are currently 11 maps, each with their own unique feel and rooms. As you get better at the game, you are rewarded by memorizing routes or strategies to either chase down ghosts, or evade hunters. It makes for very suspenseful gameplay, and keeps you on your toes as you race against the clock.
As a ghost you have access to abilities, haunts (powers you can use after death; ex: the haunt "Healing Orb" perk places a healing orb that heals around 50 health that you could give to injured ghosts), and perks which help boost your playstyle. Want to focus less on hiding and play more offensively? There are perks for that. Feel like the hunters find you too easily, and want better defense than offence? There are perks for that too! Playing as a ghost feels very smooth, and the opportunities to find clever, or too-obvious-it-must-not-be-a-ghost, or even "How the crap did you get up there!?" hiding spots are endless, and makes every game feels exciting and fresh. As you play, you learn what works against hunters and what doesn't, and the game encourages you to change loadouts and playstyles to best help your team.
As a Hunter you have access to weapons, two gadgets, and a perks. The weapons are incredibly diverse, ranging from a freezing SMG to a exploding-dart sniper rifle. The weapons feel good to use, and compliment your playstyle. No one weapon is arguably *better* than the other ones at a casual level, since each weapon serves a purpose a unique purpose that benefits your team, and your playstyle. Your gadgets are there to detect ghosts, lay traps, give you advanced movement options, (and maybe explosives) to help you get an edge over the other team. For example, you can gain access to a "grappling hook" that propels you at crazy fast speeds and has a pretty good range. Mastering it allows you to evade ghosts quickly, or catch up to them before they have the chance to escape. Another example is the "trap" equipment. While looking useless at the surface, planning out where to place them, or preemptively place them along commonly traveled ghost routes (you learn this with time) can heavily weigh the round in your favor if you manage to kill ghosts with them. Perks are used to enhance your playstyle. In general, no one perk is worse than the other, and I have used all of them in different situations. You as a player are not confined to one particular playstyle, and any way you play benefits your team and the flow of the game.
At a casual level, I strongly recommend this game because it honestly feels really good to play. Both teams are very balanced, and if you truly take the effort to get good, the gameplay feels less click-and-shooty and more psychological, as you try to figure out the other team's strategy. There is never a dull moment, (unless you're playing against bots) and it truly feels like any way you play is rewarded with perks, abilities, and weapons that seem suited just for you.
At a higher level, you learn techniques such as "crouch-jumping" as a hunter, that open up seemingly unreachable paths by normally jumping that give you an edge over the ghosts as you chase them down. There is a meta, (but I won't tell you because it takes away some of the fun :b) and at higher skill levels, everybody uses it, so it can become repetitive. However, that is nullified by the players. With a smaller player count, I've met some genuinely awesome people who are always a blast to play with. Sometimes I just mess around with objects or try ridiculous strategies that never fail to make me laugh. As a ghost, you learn routes and strategies that are very fun to use, and keeps both teams on the edge of their seats. Unfortunately, sometimes you encounter toxic players that use voice chat to troll, or even demolish newbies. I've seen players join a game, and never come back because a really good player decided to mop the floor with them. :( There are certain strategies, and loadouts that are *better*, and at a high level, it becomes less about having fun with the sandbox than being smarter and better than your opponents. This game unfortunately falls into the trap where once you start using the meta, using anything else just doesn't feel as good, or as rewarding, which is the case a lot of the time because, it is of course, *the meta*. For example, the only reason why I use some abilities or gadgets is to unlock achievements. You can of course, consciously choose not to use these strategies, but once you start using them, everything else feels "almost" as good. As you put more hours into this game, you will inevitably find out what works the best, and fall into a pattern that can create a repetitive and almost dull experience. Sometimes you will find lobbies full of extremely good, and dedicated players, and it can make it hard to enjoy the game if you are constantly losing. I often play in those rooms because I'm able to compete, but I decided to take a break because it became too repetitive for me.
Overall, its a very good experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest. The sandbox is amazing, feels good, and all the perks and offensive/defensive abilities all feel very good to use on both teams. But as you get to a higher level, it can start to feel repetitive, and online can sometimes feel empty, or extremely skill dependent, rather than a fun-party game experience. I recommend that if you don't want that, to play with friends, and enjoy the casual experience. It is a very funny, and exciting game, but as you get better (like, really good), it can become hard to use every item or ability because it isn't *the meta*. Despite that, I still like to play with friends and online, because when you find awesome people to play with, it never becomes boring. 9/10 game for me. I just wish the game had more dev support to help push marketing & content updates (but the two active devs right now are still awesome :D), and that the meta wasn't so prevalent/powerful that it nullified the point of using many other items.
