LoL is a pretty decent game, but more skilled gamers should bear in mind they might find it simple. It caters specifically to the casual gamer, though a rudimentary competitive scene does exist.
I play on the EU servers. Currently I'm level 19, but my two friends that I play with are both level 30 with almost 1000 games played each, so when we queue together, we always end up playing vs people higher ranked than myself. This means I'm pretty much always against people who have massive rune advantages over me, since a level 30 player will have at least one full rune page, whereas I dont even have a single rune, lol. Despite this, I have never yet lost mid lane once (I heavily prefer to go mid). This isn't to boast my skill, but to point out that LoL is a pretty simple and easy game, and the player base comprises mostly of casual or semi casual gamers.
Currently my favorite champions are Miss Fortune, Tristana, Ryze, and Annie. Its a pain in the ass that you have so few heroes available for play, and purchasing new ones costs an arm and a leg. Right now I'm stuck gathering IP for a rune page, which means I wont be buying any new champions any time soon. Pity, I've been looking forward to Twitch and Kogmaw
If you're looking for a more aggressive, faster paced, and deeper game, and if you feel you can be decent at a game where the player base is much more skilled than that of LoL, do give Heroes of Newerth a try. If anybody wants trial keys, I think I have 4, which I wont mind giving out. HoN is based on Dota, and while it started off being very similar to its parent game, it has now developed crucial differences. While most of the items in HoN are copies of those in Dota, only less than half the heroes are ported. The rest of the heroes are brand new to HoN. Furthermore, the metagame of HoN plays differently from that of Dota. HoN is less farm centric and encourages and rewards more aggressive and creative play. The game is extremely well made, top notch graphics that I consider to be better than those of Starcraft 2, yet will run on relatively weaker rigs with ease.
The skill level in regular pub games is considerably higher than what you'll find in average Dota pubs. I'm not sure why this is, but I constantly see things in average HoN pubs that I dont in Dota. For example, in HoN, in even lower level pubs, someone will almost always purchase a courier. Stuff like warding, counter-warding, creep stacking, creep pulling etc are all seen commonly in HoN pubs, but not in Dota pubs. I recently played a few games in garenas Pakistan high level room for Dota, and was amazed that more than half of the people there are auto-attackers in lane.
The biggest criticism about HoN is that it copied Dota. Well, this doesnt make sense, because that was precisely their intent, ie to provide a Dota clone that improved every single aspect of the game. And this is what they've managed to do. If you like Dota, and would like to play a version that improves pretty much everything about it, do yourself a favor, and try HoN.
---------- Post added at 05:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:37 AM ----------
Oh and by the way, if you guys intend on trying out LoL, do NOT sign up at leagueoflegends.com. Thats the american site/server, which means you'll be playing at 400ms ping. Sign up instead at
www.lol-europe.com, and you should get very playable pings.
