Actually that's not pay-to-win. Pay-to-win is when content impacting the game is unlockable only by paying and in no free way. xp example you just need to play more, that is free and you eventually get it.
true.. while playing COHO, i got all the hero units, upgrades and bonuses without paying anything for them. In fact, you could obtain most of them by playing skirmishes only, iirc.
Good thing was they provided for diversity and customization, enabling different BOs and strategies. Bad thing was that some of them were clearly OP (mg dmg bonus III, pio fausts, if anyone remembers.. not to mention some of the hero units) but i think the game was pretty balanced for a beta (relatively speaking, considering amount of stuff that was in game).