I played hots and it wasn't bad at all. New heroes would be first ban pick in ranked when overpowered anyway, and they usually stayed like that a couple of weeks until they were balanced.

I'm completely fine with that monetization since you still can't beat better players with money and you can still do everything without spending a penny. You at most get a tiny MMR inflation for a week or two if you buy every new hero on release (which wasnt even that often) and that was nowhere near enough to jump a higher league. Hell, given that it still didn't make them enough money maybe it was too little monetization..