F2P is a customer-hostile buisness model aimed at designing the game around forcing people to spend money rahter than being fun.
What the frack are you talking about? How can a game force you to do anything? I think it's a much more customer-friendly business model than the traditional one, since you can try the game for free and you know what you're getting into and what you're paying for if you decide to pay anything at all. And in order to make you want to spend money, the game has to be designed to be fun in the first place. Apart from just giving the game away I can't think of a more customer-friendly model.
The people who hate free to play games are the people who cannot keep themselves from buying things, or the people who can't afford the things but still want them.
I play F2P games all the time. I enjoy them without spending a dime on them. If they become no longer fun, I stop playing them and delete them. Its not really difficult, or something worth getting upset over. Heck, I haven't even opened the Tribes: Ascend store tab. That game will let you buy weapons, skins, etc. Doesn't matter though, because I can do amazing things with a turret and an SMG.
As soon as I get home, I'm going to try this out- it looks amazing and frankly I think it's a great way to evolve the Minecraft clone model into a new genera.
It looks nothing like a minecraft clone right now, actually. It looks like a fancy-featured tower defense game with free building. That said, the potential they show with the engine is excellent, and I can't wait to see what they do with it.
Also the visuals look amazing.