Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time

So I picked this up as soon as I got word that it was out. Both my wife and I have been playing it since.

The sound effects, writing, controls, style, theme are all as awesome as the first. The play style is similar to the original game, with a few new added features and tactics.

The improvements from the first:
* Adding more diverse plants. I won't spoil what they are, but they're quite fun, and really widen the possible tactics.
* Plant food is an amazing feature, it really helps fill the critical times with tactical use, and gives more depth to your tactics and survivability.
* I love the way you see you're progress through the game - completing stages, unlocking new plants, opening gates for new levels. It's a huge improvement from the first.
* Added challenges! They added challenges to the game, which were the most fun part of the first PvZ game. Beat this level without zombies crossing half of the map, protect these plants, only use these plants, only spend this much sun, don't spend sun for X seconds, create X sun before the end of the level, kill X zombies in Y seconds, etc. It was amazing how they incorporated the most fun part of the mini games into the actual story line this time.

The things that didn't feel right:
* It wasn't clear what the purpose of money was, so I hoarded it for quite while, assuming I would spend it on plants or zen garden-y type things. Money is only spent on power-ups or buying plant food in levels, so spend it as necessary.
* Power-ups are a neat system, but they feel very much like cheating. Plant food has it's purpose, and you store it until you need it, but power-ups are just a cheap way of nuking the map.

Things I didn't like:
*  The pinching power-up is very hard to use, and I keep my nails quite short. For my wife it was damn near impossible. Especially on a iPhone (vs iPad) with the size of the screen
* The electricity power-up was difficult because your finger was getting in the way of seeing if what you were zapping was dead. Maybe this is better on the iPad as well?
* There is no PC version of the game - which was done with reason, but still very missed.
* The micro transactions are not micro. It's about $3-4 for each plant. It's not even a buy early scheme like online shooters usually go with. You can complete the game without the plants, but it leaves you feeling your arsenal is incomplete.

I still feel like I should pay for something with this game, since I really enjoyed it, but I'm not sure what's best to spend my money on. So far I haven't needed anything in particular. Perhaps if there was an all-inclusive purchase, so I could pay $20 and get all paid items, that would work. I just know more paid items are going to show up and I'll regret my earlier purchases.

You finish this game after going through the third area. After that you are supposed to fight a boss, who is easier if you have more stars, etc. but he's not in the game yet. So for all practical purposes, the game is done.