Tbh it's pretty retarded to judge the game based on microtransactions.
Everyone saying it'll be trash. Uh, derp? It's already basically out. Looks great. Plays great. Battlefront 1 was super fun. BF2 has several improvements.
The microtransactions are a problem but have absolutely nothing to do with the overall quality of the game.
tbh even if characters took 100 hours solid gameplay to unlock, that's fine as long as there's no buy-out option. That's the main problem.
I'm sure EA will re-introduce them once things settle down.
I can get to a point where such things would not matter but I am not sure the implementation here is going to be it.
From the start I find the whole concept to be very distasteful and much prefer to either be sold a complete game or access to a game using a rolling release type model (I know the latter irks some but if it plays for other software it plays here too).
Acceptable ways to do microtransactions from where I sit.
Purely cosmetic skins. Why anybody would buy such a thing I do not know but apparently they do, and it even applies to console and flash cart launch menus most people should only be staring at for 20 seconds. I don't even know the psychological reasoning for it, only that it is a thing and has happened for a very long time, though the industrial revolution changed a bit here and it may also vary between countries/cultures (presumably those that view
choices as something
special).
Pareto frontier options. Classic example would be reducing things to damage per second and as long as that stays consistent then it plays. Doing balance is harder, and you may wish to make something slightly easier to use (various games then have it referred to as the noob tube or noob cannon) to allow players of various skill levels to still play if your game punishes a lack of skill*.
*an example might be multiplayer shooter, some kind of area denial/destroy the flag thing. If kills don't count then the new guy that basically acts as a fire puller/bullet sponge adds something to your team and thus does not matter when they die 10 times in a row.
What I once heard dubbed incomparables. As well as the pareto frontier you give someone that chucked something your way you say instead allow them to play a medic which opens up a whole different style of play. Balancing this is tricky and in some ways by denying people choices you trouble your game (I figure out the opposition are a bunch of cheap bastards and won't have a medic...) but that can be managed.
Character selection. Server randomly assigns you character 2, you prefer 6 so chuck them something to allow for that.
Long term effort to unlock is an odd one. Many games do something like this, though in many cases then devolve into the former (raids in world of warcraft making levelling basically a prolonged tutorial for that, and possibly then why sub numbers tanked when dota/moba rose up and people could play the same thing without it). On the flip side if these are able to be bought but still fall within the previous stuff (cosmetic, frontier and incomparables) I don't really have a problem.
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