Valve released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Free Edition for those who don't mind just playing against bots or viewing matches through GOTV. I did hear that LAN play was possible with this release as well, so that's certainly a pretty big plus.
However, if you wants things like actual online games, matchmaking, inventories, XP, ranks, and everything else, you'll have to pony up the $14.99 (USD).
I'm assuming this is Valve's way of testing things out before one day making Global Offensive a true F2P game that is supported by


