I never liked tf2 and I always wondered why everyone was so worked up about it. The gameplay sucks with all the weapon boosts etc. that you can get, you're limited to low power weapons only to be blasted away in 1 shot by someone with some lame uber shot. Who wants to play like that? Not me. You can't even tell who's cheating with the option for legal 'cheats' around.
Most of the weapons are pretty balanced. There are only a few weapons that are widely considered upgrades from the stock weapons. Everything else just offers a different playstyle with no distinct advantage. The "levels" of alternate weapons is just tongue-in-cheek humor from Valve, it means nothing. With a few of the classes, the stock weapons are considered the most useful, like the scout, demo, and soldier (barring his melee wep).
When the game first came out it was fairly simple, but now with so many weapons in the game I can definitely see how daunting it can be for new players. But you can get by just fine on the stock weapon loadouts and you should be able to get a feel for the game. There is also a training option for new players where you can play against bots. I haven't actually tried it out, though.
Curry: When did you buy the game? I got it with the Orange Box package back in 07 which was arguably the best deal in gaming history. There was also a couple sales in which you could get TF2 for merely a few bucks. Nothing like the 50 bucks I ended up wasting on the first Left4Dead game.
