style="border: 0px solid ; width: 640px; height: 378px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/91668">

Click to enlarge!


It's not easy to find a
game in the emerging genre of Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas or
DotA-Likes or Tactical Multiplayer Combat games or whatever kind of
stupid phrase you want to prefer.  The only similarlity to all
of these games is that they are 5v5 competitions that have you
controlling one hero.  Each one has its strengths and
weaknesses, some being more obvious than others.



style="font-weight: bold;">Defense of the Ancients -
WarCraft III Custom Map



style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-weight: bold;">Pros

style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">-
Ridiculously diverse hero selection, with new
ones being added often.

- Easily the most established community, with virtually every aspect of
the game that you might have questions about being only a google search
away.

- Lots of modes to keep things varied and interesting.



Cons

-
Zero matchmaking, which leads to a lot of stacked teams
and unfair matchups.  This leads to a lot of leaving mid-game,
which is virtually unpunishable without third party tools.

- Possibly the hardest learning curve of all of the games to get into
from scratch at this point.

- Ugly by today's standards, and isn't even widescreen compatible
without some third party help due to the limitations of the WarCraft
III engine.



style="font-weight: bold;">Heroes of Newerth



style="font-style: italic;"> style="font-style: italic;">
style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">Pros

Has
support for reconnecting after a disconnect, observers, and fantastic
replay support.

- Is basically DotA in a superior engine, allowing them to create some
heroes that break the mold, and provide superior graphics.

- Matchmaking generally pits you with people of similar skill.



Cons

- Ugly community, with some of the most elitist players around.
 This can be a major turn-off to some.

- A high price tag for what was once a free custom map to begin with
($30)

- Flashy gameplay can be confusing to some when team fights break out. style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;"> style="font-weight: bold;">



style="font-weight: bold;">League of Legends



Pros

- It's free!

- Matchmaking is in, reconnecting is in.  There are multiple
queues to line up for depending on how serious of a game you want.

- A lot of DotA standards are out--mages scale with items, cooldowns
are very low, and it's very difficult for a hero to 'carry' the entire
team unlike the others.



Cons

style="font-weight: bold;">
Smurfing
is common place (creating a new name to mess with newbies)

- Terrible 'power creep'.  A lot of the new heroes simply
replace the old ones in terms of usefulness and strength.

- It might as well not be free.  You have to earn the right to
play as the heroes that aren't free each week, greatly limiting new
players.

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our League of Legends Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

Comments