I don't really see very much negativity in this sub. Maybe every once in a while there's a thread here and there that stirs up a bit of negative conversation, but for the most part it's a pretty solid community.

And even with the negativity, I don't think a lot of the complaints are necessarily indicative of people not playing the game. I know I've done my fair share of complaining about bugs but I still love playing this game and I've got a bit over 200 hours in it with no intention to stop playing anytime soon. It's undeniably buggy but I still find it very enjoyable. Especially considering it's very rapidly approaching my most played steam game (250 hours), which says something about it considering there are a lot of very good games in my steam library that I haven't even touched, let alone played for 200 hours.

To the OP since I'm too lazy to make a second post:

So, my main question is, is anyone still actually playing? To all who still are, why are you playing? Do you think that the game is worth purchasing for someone who has wanted to play since the beginning of the mod and has never gotten a chance to? Is it worth all the trouble?

I was in your exact same boat. I wanted to play since I heard about the mod, but never got the chance because I didn't have Arma 2 or Operation Arrowhead. I just decided I'd wait for the standalone. And I got it at the beginning and it was pretty shit, not gonna lie. I logged maybe 30 hours and quit for several months. Well I decided to start playing again maybe in October or September, and it had me hooked. I've played it almost every single day since I started back. It's still buggy as hell (though much less than it originally was) but the great thing is they've added loads of content and really fleshed out the map more. There's still several things I have yet to do. I haven't seen a sizable chunk of the map yet, I haven't found quite a few different guns, I haven't found a sword, I haven't found a chainsaw, just to name a few.

And even once I do everything, the game will still be fun because interactions with other players is what makes it fun. There's always something new in DayZ when you run into a player. They might be hilarious, they might be a bandit, they might be assholes, whatever it may be there's always a new experience to be had.

Now I will admit one thing: hackers have gotten real bad. I used to rarely see hackers but now I see them on nearly every server I go on. This sucks but very few of them have very scary hacks. They might fly up to you and take a couple shots at you, but none have aimbot or anything like that so it's usually a survivable encounter. If a hacker is flying around near me I just try to get away into a safe place and log out and switch servers. The one hack that really sucks is the one where people can shoot through walls. You can be in a firefight and think you're safe there then suddenly you get shot through the wall and you're dead. And it's not as obvious as the flying until you're already dead.

I would say the game is very much worth it even at this point, and it's only going to get better from here.