I don't think I ever asked for them to give me one of the books for free.
And, to repeat,... I am not exactly asking whether or not I would like the system. I am asking whether the books are worth the price point. These are not the same questions. I am interested in the books as
books.
Are the books worth the $50 price point?
Kinda.
RPG books are on the pricey side. $50 for a full colour 320-page RPG book on quality paper is becoming a fairly good deal. Green Ronin is charging $50 for the
Advanced Bestiary and the paper quality of that is lesser. The 13th Age core book is 320-pages and $50+. Numenera is 420-pages for $60.
Paizo's books used to be that size and less, but Paizo has dropped the number of pages for most of their releases in recent memory. So it's $10 more but 64-pages of additional content.
The price/page is well within industry standards. That said, WotC does likely have much higher print runs, so the price *could* be lower. But it wouldn't be *much* lower. Couple cups of coffee. The price of a value meal at a fast food restaurant. Etc.
The books are not dramatically overpriced. And, in a couple years, they'll still be the right price: WotC won't have to adjust the MSRP or risk losing money on sales after a couple years of inflation.
There were some initial concerns about quality, but those seem to have subsided. (And WotC was good about replacing damaged copies anyway.)
But are the books
worth the price? That's a personal question.
I'm the proud owner of the Red Dwarf RPG. MSRP of $34.95, and purchased from Paizo.com during a Golem sale for a buck. Yep, $1. They were pretty much giving it away. But, that was pretty much money wasted. I've barely even glanced at the book, having purchased a bunch of other content at the same time that took priority. And the chances that I'd run a game are pretty much zero. If I was going to do something RPG-esque set on the small rouge one, I'd probably use something rules lite like FATE. So, arguably, that book was not worth the buck.
In contrast, the $50 PHB has been read one and a half times and has inspired me to write over a dozen subclasses and dust off my 2-4e campaign setting for a revision. So even though it cost literally 50x as much (58x when you consider USD to CAD) I've gotten much, much, much more value out of the product.
The 5e PHB is an excellent book. The most flavour for races and classes of any RPG book I've ever seen. A solid system. Great art. Lots of character ideas. It's truly an excellent product. The MM is arguably even better. And the DMG is decent.