Ayrik: Yeah, sorry. I've worked so happily with 2D graphics using XNA that I sometimes forget that it's capable of 3D. I'll look into that 2D toolkit too, as I could easily stretch to $65. I used to program in Basic (VB6, then VB.Net) before moving …
Yeah, Google did bring up a few other alternatives including one method of working around the limitation with Visual Studio Express, but these all came with huge drawbacks.
To be honest I've had a go with Unity in the past. Creating a 3D model well…