Of course, there are limitations but there are fantastic projects out there that have been made with all free Microsoft development tools. Visual Studio 2013 Express is really an amazing, free development environment. Combine it with SQL Server 2012 Express which is the free version of SQL Server that works on databases up to 10 GB and you can see you can do a lot with free Microsoft software.
Costs Involved...This is the point where C# really sucks. Almost every tool, OS, IDEs and plugins, are paid.
Anyone can download Visual Studio 2013 Express edition. The Express edition has been free since Visual Studio 2005. Here's a download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads
Click on Visual Studio Express.
Of course, there are limitations but there are fantastic projects out there that have been made with all free Microsoft development tools. Visual Studio 2013 Express is really an amazing, free development environment. Combine it with SQL Server 2012 Express which is the free version of SQL Server that works on databases up to 10 GB and you can see you can do a lot with free Microsoft software.
See more info on Visual Studio Express here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express