>I gave up on plants versus zombies 2 quickly when it became obvious the game was just prompting me to spend money at every turn. Granted, some people say this was mitigated eventually.

The funny thing is the unmitigated, most pay2win version of Plants Versus Zombies 2 - the game at launch - was accidentally one of the most amazing and intense gaming experiences for people who never spent anything. For people who just really enjoyed a vastly more challenging version of PvZ.

I loved the first game but it was never a challenge, it was rare to fail a level more than once. But the levels in the second were passable if you spent zero premium currency (even not spending any of premium currency they gave you for free for logging in) - they were just very very challenging. Passing every single one required novel strategies and slowly revising, eking out a few more tiny edges each time you try, combined with absolute precision in execution, until somehow the level was passable.

I'm not actually sure every single level was passable by not even spending the currency they gave you for free, I never quite finished it, but I got through most of them! When I logged in to finish the remaining levels later, they had made them all way easier in an effort to respond to p2w criticism so I never had a chance.