30$ is a totally fine amount to get access to multiple chars and hard maps.
For free you can play all 3 maps in normal mode, you can play any classes but limited to 1 char slot at a time. That's nothing new in free to play. People complaining are basically asking the whole game to be free. You can totally have fun playing through the whole game with friend with 1 class. I guess that's it's more a "shareware" but there's plenty of content accessible for free.

However I'm giving it a "meh" for now because they removed the shrinking circles making impossible to know where an exit portal will be so survivors just end up running around alone until the ceiling collapses on them which is really boring compared to the intense pvp to be the last one escaping. It's also even less noob friendly because it seems map mastery is even more important as you ll need to cover and survive a huge part of the map to have a chance to find a portal. Haven't seen a single one in 3 hours of playtime and haven't seen any of the survivors find one either while spectating soooo that's pretty underwhelming.
Edit1: After playing some more there are some stairs and ropes to escape so it's doable (though the game hates to explain anything to players, frustratingly) but I'd say it's still less exciting than the portal hunt.

Edit2: I've seen a couple legit issues with having to buy full access to the game via in game monetization.
1- It apparently forces a unified price in every country. In some country the 30 USD is a ton of money (people there have different prices on the store to adapt to the local currency's value) so it makes the game unfairly priced and out of reach for some.
2- By buying the game this way you cannot get a Steam refund. Though at this point you've already played the game so you should know if you like the game loop and if it runs on your PC.

30$ is a totally fine amount to get access to multiple chars and hard maps. For free you can play all 3 maps in normal mode, you can play any classes but limited to 1 char slot at a time. That's nothing new in free to play. People complaining are basically asking the whole game to be free. You can totally have fun playing through the whole game with friend with 1 class. I guess that's it's more a "shareware" but there's plenty of content accessible for free. However I'm giving it a "meh" for now because they removed the shrinking circles making impossible to know where an exit portal will be so survivors just end up running around alone until the ceiling collapses on them which is really boring compared to the intense pvp to be the last one escaping. It's also even less noob friendly because it seems map mastery is even more important as you ll need to cover and survive a huge part of the map to have a chance to find a portal. Haven't seen a single one in 3 hours of playtime and haven't seen any of the survivors find one either while spectating soooo that's pretty underwhelming. Edit1: After playing some more there are some stairs and ropes to escape so it's doable (though the game hates to explain anything to players, frustratingly) but I'd say it's still less exciting than the portal hunt. Edit2: I've seen a couple legit issues with having to buy full access to the game via in game monetization. 1- It apparently forces a unified price in every country. In some country the 30 USD is a ton of money (people there have different prices on the store to adapt to the local currency's value) so it makes the game unfairly priced and out of reach for some. 2- By buying the game this way you cannot get a Steam refund. Though at this point you've already played the game so you should know if you like the game loop and if it runs on your PC.