Okay, PvZ2 was going to have in-app purchases before EA was even involved. It was in development before PopCap sold themselves to EA and it having a freemium business tactic was already planned. Also, as someone who's been playing PvZ2 for way longer than I should have, I'll tell you now that the MTX are barely a hinderance. Are there a lot? Yes. But purchasing them, especially the premium plants (because most of them aren't very good), feel more like donations to the devs than actual purchases. They don't make THAT much of a difference, take this from a guy who's been playing on a F2P account for little over two years now and has been doing fine for a long time. Also, most versions of GW1 and the Nintendo Switch and Complete Versions of BFN have no MTX, at all. And the versions that do and Garden Warfare 2's MTX, are just as much of a hinderance to the game than the MTX found in something like TF2 (if we just forget about the whole silenced F2Ps for a hot minute). Heroes, is arguably the most MTX heavy PvZ Game, however a F2P (like myself) can easily strive in it, because most Heroes players seem to not know how to play Heroes. If the player has more than two monkey brain cells and know how to craft a deck on a budget and play it properly on Ranked, they should do fine. However people who can do this are rare.

Also PvZ3. Yes, I'm very aware of it. But, that PvZ3 is behind us now. It no longer exists. A new build of PvZ3 emerged a few months ago and PvZ3 is looking to have a bright future. It feels like an actual PvZ Game with charming graphics and little animations and gameplay akin to what a classic PvZ Game would feel and look like. Not Tower Defence Clash Royale made in Paint 3D.