I used to play poker seriously (not necessarily well!) but I've not played any poker at all for about a year. I was a small winning player in MTTs upto about $20 I guess, but no success above that, and I was never a very good bankroll manager.

Now I'm thinking about playing again, as a recreational player (play the occasional SCOOP, Sunday etc etc - hoping for a big payout) - I know that the game has got tough, and I don't expect to be a winning player anymore. But the question I have is how tough has it got? I don't want to feel like I'm drawing dead in the short-medium term, even if I probably am drawing dead long term.

In all honesty unless you are willing to put in 120% its probably not worth it.

If you just want to have fun, take a few shots sure. But I would not expect you to build a bankroll unless you take it very very seriously. There are so many regs, a lot from eastern europe grinding the lower mtts and they play high volume. Even "semi-pros' are still putting in the hours and its hard to compete.

That being said all mtts under $5 are still very very soft. I think if you can stick to playing $1-$5 mtts you might be alright. I'd avoid games over the $11 level, for a casual player you will not be able to compete in these at all.

Go for it! I play on America's Card Room and there's definitely a lot of fish in the low stakes MTTs. If you do some studying with some books like Harrington on Holdem and Kill Everyone you can learn to play well and likely do quite well in the tournaments as far as building a BR if you use good BR management.

ACR has some nice low stakes guaranteed tournaments that often have overlay. Can't really speak for other sites. I've played a bit on Global Poker but not enough to comment on their MTTs, though I did bink a small field one for a hundo and cashed out quickly with paypal with no fuss.

Online poker's still here, it's not dead. The tables are open, come play!

Play poker if you enjoy it or think you will enjoy it, stop if you don't enjoy it or don't think you will

I can't imagine you're not a winner in a 22$ scoop event if you were a winner up to 22$ a year ago. Consider sites that aren't pokerstars, they increased their rake below 22$ among other things.

Yes, if you want to. But practice good bankroll management!