League of Legends

In a world where Dota 2 exists, there is no good reason to play League of Legends. The elements that differentiate LoL are superficial, inferior quality and a lower skill ceiling. It's this last aspect that has people saying it's a better game to start with than DOTA but that's not the case. Being limited to tiny pool of characters via the F2P system means you may not have access to the currently strong or newb friendly characters in the meta. A lack of a good tutorial and intelligent design that helps new players find good starter characters -- or even know who is a support -- isn't there. Sure, LoL has less items but a lower skill ceiling doesn't mean more accessible. DOTA has a lot more options but the in-game guides by the community make it easy to get into. The flexibility in how you build your hero and change your team's goal makes DOTA a much more interesting and deeper MOBA.

LoL gives its champions spam friend abilities which compliments the game's quicker pace that wants action to always be happening. Even though games will often be as long as a DOTA match, a lot more action may happen. Yet the action lacks impact due to poor aesthetics and design. The characters don't look unique on the battlefield and many don't feel unique. Considering how different every DOTA character is, this is a bit of a letdown. I didn't enjoy playing any of the champions I got my hands on. I also don't care for the emphasis on junglers and aggressive support -- hard support that focuses on buffing their team gives different roles and a dynamic in DOTA but isn't seen here.

The real reason you shouldn't play this game is due to its awful rune and F2P systems. In what can be a decision only made by greed, you have to spend points you earn from playing to purchase, organize and slot permanent buffs. This process is staggering idiotic and banal. It blows my mind this game is popular with such horrible design decisions, but so is Candy Crush and these decisions are largely still intact because they make money (players will spend points on obligatory runes instead of new characters, thus more likely to use real money).

My time with LoL felt joyless and I didn't get the impression that people play it because it does something unique or better than DOTA. It had the benefit of being first and so people now play it because their friends do or because the enormous spectacle of the competitive eSports scene that formed around it. Watching LCS games is surprisingly enjoyable but it also highlights how much the game lacks the more interesting tactical aspects of DOTA. You still have positioning, resource management and timing, but all these things feel crappy and it lacks the more interesting aspects of DOTA. But when you're watching pro play, you can forget about this and just enjoy the twitch reactions and flawless timing of top level play.