http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/7031-loadout-beta
I have a reasonable amount of hours on the beta, the game itself is a lot of fun, it's the right kind of game for it, crazy weapon combinations, profanity, silly characters.
I also tried to play some of the first competitive matches the game had, but when I tried it was still at the very begining like the early stages of tf2 comp and looked like a glorified pub.
Haven't tried it much lately but last time I played it last week it had really improved a lot from what it was in the early beta stages. Entirely new weapon craft system which now works with kind of a skill/tech tree which you can unlock with points from matches. New characters, more gamemodes etc...
To improve your weapons you have to sink some time into it, but you don't really need to spend cash on it, it's not pay to win.