By all reports (by which I mean our report, no one else’s. We don’t read other sites. That would be cheating) Arma 3 is quite the thing. An overhaul of the last game that improves performance, functionality, and now comes with added turtles. However, in its current alpha form you may not wish to throwdown wads of cash to play it.
There’s only one other legitimate option open to you, getting your hands on the free version, the alpha lite release.
The alpha lite release is a bit of a taster pack, it doesn’t feature multiplayer or custom map support, so really it’s just the sample missions and tutorials. This is no bad thing, Steve really was quite taken with the game, even in just its bare showcase form. Best of all it’s free to those that can get their hands on it.
Getting your hands on it may be tricky, Bohemia aren’t making the alpha lite available to just anyone: those who have bought into the alpha will today be receiving three alpha lite keys which they can give to friends (or enemies), the developer will also be handing keys out through its Twitter feed and may even be giving some to the gaming press to hand out to their readers.
So, if you want into the alpha and don’t want to pay, the easiest route would be to buddy up with a military sim fan. If you do want to buy in, here are the different tiers of alpha.