How easy is this to get into as a new player ? Can someone new still be at least slightly competitive without getting steamrolled everytime he turns around ?

i played it a few years ago and if i didnt have friends that had already been playing to give me decent gear and guns i would have been steam rolled dont know if it has changed from then to now but u can try it for free last i played there was alot of aimbotters just warning u.

Few years?  The game is only a year old.

 let me refraze a year and a couple months

dont listen to darkcloud33 . Basicaly if yo ucan roll ppl in counterstrike and played scrims  and have vent youll be allright in this game. you dont need any gear at all to kill someone. Its your personal skill , gear is benefit.

APB 2

Get your facts right, this game has launched before APB. I am actually surprised it is alive and kicking. Still no EU servers ?

yea CrimeCraft was supposedly based on APB concept. And when APB was in beta it was supposed to kill CrimeCraft after launch. BUt we saw what happened, APB died by itself and CrimeCraft is still alive. CC is a fun game but only for a short period of time though. Once APB goes F2P like CC is right now, ppl will probalby switch to APB

Well when I played you could only win a mediocre amount of money (~ 3 (I think, it was very very low)) per battle due to f2p restrictions, and basic things costed like 1000 , so yeah you had to grind very badly to buy thing to get competitive, there are other restrictions that limit your performance, but I can not remember right now...

You can play as much as you want, but to be competitive, expect to open your wallet