Okay, in all fairness the game appears not to have become broken with the soldier/demo update.
Games have returned to a certain level of normality. Well, at least on the server I usually play on (which, as I have mentioned a number of times before, is the excellent server of clan WDG). So my assessment might not be representative for the average pub server.
The number of demos played have returned pretty much to the pre-update count (usually 0-2). But then again the new weapons are not much of an added incentive to play demo. Once the novelty factor ran out the targe has probably lost some of its charm (the more since players have learned to defend against it) and the loss of the sticky launcher makes it clearly a situational weapon.
The soldier, as expected, is a different deal. Numbers of soldiers are strong as ever, but again it’s a bit difficult to tell if numbers have increased in general, since the WDG-server has a class-limit of 3 for soldiers (which I welcome).
But I’m really under the impression that the soldier has become a bit more powerful. Perhaps not game-breakingly powerful, but the new weapons have really given the solly an additional edge.
Oh yes, the soldier’s a class which really needed a boost ...
Okay, Valve has already begun to make adjustments, so hopefully we will see that “edge” get polished a bit.