Did I mention space ninjas?

This one's a free to play game that you don't need to pay to win. Everything that you could pay real money for can be had in-game with the exception of cosmetic stuff. The primary purpose of real money, aside from turning a profit for Digital Extremes, is to do things faster. For example, most weapons take 12-24 hours to make while warframes take 3.5 days. Paying real money gets you them almost immediately after you click the "pay" button.

The primary mechanic that keeps the game from being pay to win is called Mastery. As you earn affinity (experience) with different warframes and weapons you also earn Mastery points for your account. Since affinity levels cap at 30 you have to play with lots of weapons and several warframes to unlock the best weapons in the game. It doesn't matter how much money you want to spend; the game simply won't let you buy or make top tier weapons until your account's Mastery level is high enough for them.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

"Personally I've sunk the last year and a half into a free-to-play called Warframe. You take the basic play style of Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, throw in over a dozen mission types, randomly generated maps using over 20 tile sets, 24 different characters (and 10 deluxe "Prime" versions with slightly improved stats), over 200 weapons, over 500 mods to collect to customize your loadout, and then add in an amped up version of Mirror's Edge's free running. There's even outer space missions using flight packs called Archwings. It's still technically in Open Beta even after two years because the Dev team is constantly updating and tweaking the game and adding in new content. It's completely free-to-play, the only thing that can't be earned in game is cosmetic items, and even then you can farm for rare items and trade them to other players for the premium currency."

What's your username in Warframe (also what platform, I'm on PC)? Mine is DaftTechno.