I have so many things to say about Rocket Chinese I don't know where to start. How about the beginning...
I have been interested in learning Chinese for a year now. I have five programs, three I obtained for free and two I paid for. Of the three I found for free, one came from my local library, I didn't feel bad about making a copy because they are public domain, two I downloaded from the Internet and there was no charge.
They are all good programs, I know because I am very critical and skeptical due to the numbers of programs available, I felt I could go broke trying to find a good teaching program for learning Chinese. Of the two programs that I bought one was from a University and one is the Rocket Chinese language course.
The one from the University is good, but I expected much more form a University language course and it is no where near as comprehensive as Rocket Chinese, but to keep things honest, I paid less for the University course.