Team Fortress 2 now free to play

Hot on the heels of the news that free-to-play stuff may be coming to the Xbox 360, Valve have revealed that Team Fortress 2 will now operate under that model.
In truth, it has been for a while, with micro (and not so micro) transactions all over the place for, well, hats, mostly. However, this step finally removes the initial price of entry.
This change comes as part of Team Fortress 2’s ‘uber update’, the latest in a string of free updates that Valve estimates to now be “over 200” in total.
As usual, free players of the game get a few restrictions that ‘premium’ players do not have. But the barrier of entry to becoming ‘premium’ is just “buy any item in the Mann Co Store”, which makes it pretty cheap.
A full free-to-play FAQ can be found through the link below.
Source: teamfortress.com