I'm fine with the helmet prices because they're completely optional (at least for now?), but everything else is tied to a highly exploitative "free to play" scheme. Being allowed to pay for unlocks if you're impatient is a fine f2p tradition, but the alternative here has clearly been designed to waste your time, and A LOT of it.
And then there are the one time use upgrade items without which your frame will be significantly gimped, with the alternative to paying being playing the game at exactly the right time when these items become available for half an hour once a week or two.
The process of acquiring a new warframe:
Buy it using platinum
OR
Repeat one boss fight dozens of times for three blueprints.
Repeat some relevant missions a bunch more times for materials.
Start crafting the components.
Come back next day.
Buy the warframe blueprint, start crafting (assuming you have the materials)
Come back in three days.
Congratulations, you now own a new warframe, but if you've been playing for a while, you're likely to have filled both free warframe slots. Use platinum to expand your storage... every time you buy a new warframe using platinum? Also be sure to buy some reactors, otherwise you'll only have access to half of that warframe's upgrade tree. You wouldn't want that!
I've been thinking of buying some platinum because the core game here is really quite good, but every time I look at the platinum market, I just get grossed out, so for now I took my free to play money to Path of Exile where I will never be asked to pay for access to half of my character's skill tree. Also, I now have a pet frog. Can you own a (space) frog in Warframe? I THINK NOT!
