One of the most popular games in the growing action-RTS genre is Heroes of Newerth. The game was originally launched as a standard $30 game in 2010, then S2 Games turned it into a "free-to-play" game in 2011. However, players could only access 16 of its heroes for free, and those heroes were rotated on a weekly basis.
That all changes starting with a new patch for Heroes of Newerth on Friday. S2 Games announced today that when that patch is released, it will make all 107 heroes in the game free to access at any time for all of the game"s players. The developer states:
This is a major step forward in the development of HoN and after months of careful consideration and direct input from the HoN community, the time has come to make the HoN gameplay experience open to all users.
Any player who purchased a hero, either with real world on in-game cash, will receive a refund if they paid for the hero 15 days before July 20th. Also, anyone who has ever paid for a hero in the game will receive an "exclusive" Mecha Gemini avatar for free. S2 Games will still offer a way to get early access to new heroes for up to four weeks for an additional fee.
Source: Heroes of Neweth website