Just wanted to update my thoughts. I have played this game everyday since its global release. In some aspects, it's F2P friendly because there's a ton to do without spending money. At the same time, if you aren't spending money, you are significantly hindered. It's very hard to get excited about a new character when you realize one of the following scenarios will likely apply: 1) you won't get them because they are pretty difficult to get due to low drops, 2) you won't get them without spending money, 3) even if you get them, they will be useless because you need multiple copies of that character to make them usable. There has been only one exception to this (Street Poison), but every other character release (MH Ken, Flame Chun-Li, Vega, Dante, Fashion Cammy) satisfied at least one of those scenarios. This game will try to bleed you dry because there are so many resources that you can potentially dump money into. It's very discouraging when you can spend months at a time not making any progress because you are unable to enhance your characters due to lacking resources for awakening, leveling up, or breaking through. The character rates in this game are incredibly bad. There was a pity system in the game, but it was so bad I didn't even realize it existed until I read about them removing it. If I'm being completely honest, the only reason I still play the game is because I really like Street Fighter, but if that IP wasn't attached to the game, then I would drop it.

Edit: I just wanted to mention that I heard the HK version is MUCH better, but I don't have experience with that version, so I can't confirm.