Definitely ruined by the excess of microtransactions. Made me wish it was just available for a fixed price like the first game.

such a disappointment after the success of the first game

The main worlds are decent enough without the stupidly broken premiums or leveling and in general a stark improvement from PvZ1, but holy shit is everything else terrible. You're better off playing a mod if you want an actually good PvZ2 experience.