Star Trek Online: I paid about £8 to get some cool but totally unnecessary stuff after playing for over 100 hours. I figured the developers had earned it. Most of the community endlessly whines about it being P2W, and I suppose if you care about PvP it may well be (buying top-tier ships is stupidly expensive), but if you just want to follow the story you can easily do everything for free.

Kingdom Hearts Union Cross: Been playing daily for over a year. No money spent. Very easy to earn and hoard premium currency, and buying it is ludicrously bad value for money- they expect you to spend £11 a week for access to special quests that get you top equipment, then spend more on extra premium currency. Not worth spending unless, again, you actually want to compete in ranked events, but very playable for free.

Secret World Legends: Only played a little so far. No money spent directly, but I did get a few unlocks for having previously bought and played The Secret World. Monetisation seems a bit over the top, but I think it should be doable as a follow-the-story type game. As ever, PvP requires serious cash injections to stay ahead.

Marvel Heroes: Played briefly, then decided to drop the cash to get Squirrel Girl. Worth it. Since then I've unlocked a bunch more heroes through giveaways and grinding, so it's definitely playable F2P.

Think that's it.

I played Grand Fantasia in the past, and it's the worst of the worst pay2win game.
I tried many others "free2play" games and they are all the same (you don't have to but you will not be able to play/win without spend lot's of time/money on the game)... there is only one exception that I know: Pokemon TCG online, I think it's because they already sell real cards so they don't need to turn it into a pay2win (you cannot buy packs on this game, just tournament tickets... but versus is free, and you gain too many tickets to be able to consume all of them).
Still, right now I only play offline single player games, I'm sick of multiplayer and pay2win (too much time consuming even if it's really free... if I want to do something else and finish some rpg I cannot play multiplayer shit).

Path of Exile: Great game, and there is no need to spend any money if you don't want to, and nothing you can buy has any impact on gameplay.

Card Hunter: I've been playing it on and off in small doses for a while now. Perfectly playable free. You can get some gear, skins and extra loot. etc for money, but I've never felt like I'm missing ou on anything essential. I think multiplayer is locked behind a paywall too, but I don't care about it anyway

Infinity Wars: Great collectible card game, and surprisingly for the genre, it never required any spending from me. It probably would be different if I had any ambitions of getting really high in the ranking, but I'm not very competative and the way I played I was doing more than fine with just the cards the game awards for free and the ones bought for points you get by playing (and not grinding either). And I've wasted a lot of those points on Star Trek cards they used to have, so I could have had even more useful cards for free if I wanted.

Hearthstone: Boring, uninspired and bland, I didn't play long enough to run into pay to win issues.

Star Trek Online: I played it before it went f2p, I played it afterwards (not continously, with a huuuuuge gap) and I didn't notice any issues with the f2p version. The game isn't all that great anyway, despite some good moments. The fact it's f2p means it's certainly worth checking out for the fans, but I don't think there's anything there worth investing money (or too much time).

The Old Republic: I played a trial version before it went f2p, then I played the f2p version. I liked neither much. Star Trek Online for all it's flaws at least has some personality. TOR is like a transporter accident that merged WoW, Mass Effect and KotOR into some evil hybrid that took almost only the bad parts of each one of those things. For a while there you miight fool yourself into liking it, because it's Star Wars, right? But soon enough it will strike you just how shallow and bland and repetative it all is, and how it has pretty much no identity of it's own. And the f2p conversion did it no favors, only making it even more grindy and blatantly devoid of personality beyond a cash grab.

Marvel Heroes: Played it very briefly a good while ago. A rather uninteresting hack'n'slash made unintentionally hilarious and rather surreal by having dozens of the same characters like Hawkeye or Thing running around and then stealing Dr. Octopus' shoes and belt as loot. I'd love to see that in one of the Marvel movies. If I remember correctly most of the characters were available for purchase, at rather steep prices.

Can't say I'm nuts about having to pay to play ranked :P But the Man vs Machine stuff looks really cool and I'm sad I missed that. Perhaps one day I'll try it again. I much prefer TF2's overall style and vibe to Overwatch. I only hope there are more local players these days.

Yup. Some developers have learned that if you treat your users right that they'll support you back. Personally I avoid anything with a grind though. If you have to level up to 30/60 to unlock the full content of a game or have it available in a $20 "founder's pack", you're doing it wrong. Give all the content at the start, let users get hooked on it, and sell them shinies! :D

It's mostly DOTA 2 for me. Everything and everyone is unlocked at the start so it's cool. I've recently started Neverwinter ($3 swagbucks for making an account) and it's pretty fun, but I hear it's P2W at the higher levels or something.

Thanks for the imput from everyone.

I think part of the reason why I've tried so few f2p games is that so many of them are in genres I just don't care for (MOBAs, Diablo-clones, MMOs), but since they're free I guess I have nothing to lose in giving them another chance.

I had played my fair share of Free-To-Play games but they were mostly Pay-To-Win which is really a BIG turn-off 4 me so usually i only play them a very short while if i'm really bored. The only 1 that i really enjoy playing was DOTA2 in which every1 is equal right fr the start (except ur own skills of cos) & u do not need 2 pay a single cent 4 the game 2 be superior than others in the game in any way.

hardly ever play free to play games,
last time i play f2p it was team fortress 2, i enjoyed immensely like play 'em for 9 hours straight, then i have to stop. Its not pay 2 win ftp so its all good. i dont bother with dota 2 never try playing it.

STO is one of those games where you can grind for a cash limit unlock. Most f2p MMOs put a limit on how much cash you can have on hand. Took about a month of playing the crystal and auction markets but I paid for it without paying a penny of real money.

On the other hand, I paid the 2 bucks for intro pack to *shudder* Farmville Country escape simply to give something back to the developers. Then I google'd their company name and read up on their ethics.