I used to be really big into League of Legends. Played at least a couple years, starting in beta, and ended up with about 3000 games under my belt. I quit for several reasons: it was too much of a time sink (typically 35 minutes games that where essentially uninterruptible), the individual competitive nature of the game drove away most of my friends, and the people that I did play with that remained had a lot of infighting/drama because XXXX didn't want to play with YYYY etc.
I picked up Heroes of the Storm a couple months back to mixed feelings. At first I thought the game was a bit too simple: personally I always enjoyed the complexity and nuances of LoL. I enjoyed the competitive nature that drove me to be the top player of the match. In Heroes of the Storm, it's a lot simpler and the gameplay is much more about teamwork comparatively. However I think once you leave your predispositions taught to you from previous MOBA's, there's a lot of things HotS has improved upon in the genre.
I'm really enjoying how the laning phase has been minimized. Last hitting is no longer important so you can focus on what most people enjoy in these games: playing against the other team. It's simple enough and short enough that I can sit down for a game or 2 and be done in under an hour, which as a 30 year old with a full time job is more important to me than it used to be. The objective based game-play makes it so snowballing is much less of an impending doom scenario and more of an obstacle that can be overcome with teamwork and determination. And I think most importantly to me: the teamwork mentality of the game has brought my gaming buddies back to the genre. There are much fewer "chores" in HotS than many other MOBAs, and teamwork is way more important that focusing on improving yourself. You're part of a group and win or lose, I think it's much more enjoyable to most people that way.
I won't be playing much this week as I'm helping prep a wedding, but if anyone feels like joining me sometime my battletag is Greath#1461. I can show you the ropes or just join you for a couple games sometime.
