Wow, even the COD cocksuckers are raging at this move.
Apparently the $20 gun was also a unique pre-order bonus from Gamestop but instead of creating something new, Treyarch just took that gun and put a price tag on it, making it available to everyone willing to pay. You also don't get it straight away either - you are paying to unlock the challenges and have to complete those to get the gun variant. The word variant is bullshit anyway - if this was Black Ops 2, it would be called a camo - camo that can be used on any gun and cost about $2.
People are just as annoyed with Treyarch's laziness. Infinity Ward may be criticised for the quality of their games but at least they put effort into developing guns that are unique, challenging to unlock and have differences in the variants giving some merit to the buzz word. Sledgehammer also did well with the limited appeal and design of the WW2 weapons. Treyarch have no excuse though - these are their own bullshit fictional weapon creations and they can't even be arsed to design new stuff - instead they take any existing assets and put it behind a paywall - even 'exclusive' pre-orders. It was bad enough the back of stuff to earn in the tiers but this is a new low of being lazy.
The amount of big COD YouTuber's speaking out against this will hopefully resonate with even the biggest wallet/pants open COD fans. I used to admire Treyarch but now they couldn't give a shit about the community and just seem more content on trying to milk as much for Activision. Hopefully this time it will backfire.