I assume that purchasing a retail box of APB:Reloaded would be roughly equivalent to purchasing a $10 to $25 dollar Riot Point card for League of Legends at your local Gamestop, except the card is also a CD that installs the 5-gig game as well. That's convenient for people on budget broadband who are also interested in supporting the development of the game. However, unlike League of Legends, which offers enticing fancy skins and champions for real $ that would alternatively take forever for most people to unlock via free play, APB currently has little to offer in their in-game cash shop aside from the $10 1-month all in one boost package (full customization, increased cash, exp, and rep). I imagine this would change by the holiday season of course.

For now, the current cash-shop weapons aren't tantamount to the dreaded "pay2win" scenario that many lesser F2P games have, but the pricing structure is stratospheric. Recently the implemented two cars (one for each faction) that offer amazing upgrades (that would probably take an eternity to unlock) for the price of $25. This didn't blow my mind like some of their earlier deals ($60 permanent max-slot guns), but it still seemed pricy for what it was. but then I started seeing them everywhere so I guess they know what they can get away with.