In spite of many innovations and improvements, something just doesn't seem right with League of Legends.
In League of Legends, a multiplayer 5v5 game, your aim is to destroy a particular structure in the enemy base. To do this, you control a single character called a "champion". Your champion fights constantly-spawning NPCs, an increasingly powerful set of defensive towers and, of course, other champions. Along the way, you may have to tear down so-called "inhibitors" that makes your team's NPCs stronger. As you battle, you gain gold and experience, allowing you to buy ever more powerful items and skills to annihilate the other team.
Simple enough in theory, but in practice DotA-style games have always been difficult to play. For starters, there are over fifty champions to choose from, each with 4 unique skills and one passive. There are also a whole boatload of items, all with different effects. The learning curve therefore tends to be very high. League of Legends introduces multiple new methods to smooth new players into the game. Items are nicely sorted into groups named "ability power" or "defense", allowing you to quickly pick out which items you might need. There's also a "recommended" tab that shows which items are generally good choices for your champion. The game uses the same hotkeys to use every item and skill as well as graphical indicators of where an ability's area of effect is, which makes micromanagement easier. Importantly, you can play solo or cooperative games against the AI as well. Although the AI isn't very good, it is good enough to give you a taste of the game, and players who easily hold their own against the AI have nothing to fear about seeking real human opponents.
Once past the learning curve the real game begins. LoL games tend to be long – around 40 minutes – but the game plays noticeably different at different stages. During early game, champions stay in their lanes and attempt to score the last hit on creeps, earning gold for their items. Later, teams amass for pushes and skirmishes, leading to epic battles. Just like DotA, a good game of LoL is a tremendously fun experience, something few games can match. When all's said and done however, LoL is a DotA clone. Crucial questions then are how it compares to DotA itself, as well as to other DotA clones like Heroes of Newerth (HoN). In this, League of Legends is highly distinctive.
It's quite clear that LoL was created with certain ideals in mind. "All champions should be viable the entire game" is one such idea – although some champions are still stronger than others late-game, every champion remains relevant to the game. The game champions "less randomness" by removing runes, which are basically powerups that spawn every 2 minutes in DotA / HoN, and a champion's attacks deal a given amount of damage with no variation. "Player interaction should be maximized" is yet another ideal, with every champion having multiple active skills that need to be used fairly often. An age-old DotA feature, creep denying (whereby you kill your own units so the other team doesn't get gold and experience), has also been removed. Players stay dead for shorter times, don't lose gold for dying (again, unlike DotA / HoN), special terrain that makes champions invisible and the comparatively low gold for killing creeps encourages players to move around and try to kill each other.
On paper, all these ideals sound good. When one really plays the game however, it somehow feels less intense. In DotA / HoN, spells deal massive damage early-game while fading away later. This means teamfights during early-game are completely different from those during late-game. Especially during early-game, one can easily kill a champion in a few seconds using spells. In LoL, spells deal consistent but low damage throughout. They have to, or spellcasters would be unbalanced. However, coupled with stronger defensive skills in LoL (LoL has more heals, for example) this leads to early-game being relatively slow-paced, and champions are hard to kill.
Another problem is that since champions don't lose gold on death + they stay dead shorter, it is far harder to turn around a losing game. In DotA / HoN, late-game battles are serious and decisive. A single lost teamfight is not only expensive, it can easily lead to destroyed inhibitors. This leads to faster-paced gameplay and more tension. It also leads to more hope in a losing game, because one might be able to turn the game around if the other team makes a mistake. In LoL however this just doesn't happen. Once a team starts winning they will generally win.
Finally, in DotA / HoN, the early-game / late-game champion split leaves unique complexities. If the champion matchup permits it is possible to dominate a lane, forcing the other team from gold or even experience range. This is much harder to pull off in LoL, because champions in LoL tend to be relatively equal to each other at all stages of the game. Evaluating a teamfight is also far easier. In DotA / HoN, an early 2v1 fight for example is not a foregone conclusion if the two champions are weak during early-game while their opponent isn't. A tough game of hide-and-seek begins as the lone champion tries to survive long enough for his spells to cool down. If he can do this, he might even be able to score a clean double kill. Unfortunately, such complexity simply does not exist in LoL. A 2v1 fight will always result in the side with 2 winning, just like 4 champions will always triumph over 3.5 champions (3 champions at full health + one at half health). The situation is such that if one of your teammates leave, you are pretty much doomed to lose unless you have a massive (read: MASSIVE) skill advantage over the other team.
To top it all off, LoL restricts new players. Players gain influence points (IPs) for playing the game, and use them to unlock champions, runes and masteries. If you haven't unlocked any champions you can only play the 10 champions freely available for the week. This isn't so bad; LoL is a free game after all and each champion is generally viable, although team synergy might be less than perfect. Runes and masteries on the other hand really push the boundary. These are power-ups that are tied to your account; you need to play to unlock them. Depending on which you choose to equip, they can for example give extra cooldown reduction on your skills, or more mana, or more health regen. The result is that experienced players take to the field already significantly stronger than new players. It's something I don't like at all. Sure it allows players to customize their characters to their tastes, but at what cost? Incredibly as well, it seems that the fastest way to gain IPs is to play against the AI – not against other humans.
There's a lot more to be said about LoL. Its cartoonish graphics are not for everyone (I happen to be one of those who don't like them), and it does away with staple DotA / HoN features like town portal scrolls and couriers. Inhibitors respawn after a time, encouraging players to try to finish the game quickly. Champions' health bars indicate just how much health they have left in hundreds, and there are boost-granting monsters around the map that can be killed. Much work must have gone into the game's art, and each champion is lovingly described with a backstory to boot. There are tips for both playing with and against those champions, as well as a "death recap" to show you just what dealt the most damage to you when you are slain, just so you can defend yourself against them next time. Nonetheless, all this just seems minor compared with the problems at heart of the game. In spite of its superficial similarity to DotA / HoN, and in spite of its good ideals on paper, something just doesn't seem right with League of Legends.
For the new player looking to get into DotA / HoN / LoL, I'd start with LoL. The relatively smooth learning curve makes the game easier to grasp, and one can get into the thick of action quicker. Nonetheless, I would argue that DotA / HoN are better games, and more worth playing eventually.
Finally, it is worth noting that LoL is not available for South East Asian players because of a partnership between Riot Games and Garena. SEA players can play the game, but only on Garena servers. This means SEA players cannot play on international servers or vice versa, and cuts SEA players from the world. This is a massive drawback of LoL, because it means that online friendships formed via other games cannot be carried over to LoL if one party lives in South East Asia.
Pros: can be supremely fun at times; many varied heroes and items; relatively gentle learning curve; frequently updated; systems in place to clear the game of excessively hostile players; free to play.
Cons: considerably slower paced than DotA / HoN; simple and straightforward; lacking in intensity; innate advantages to hardcore players; South-East-Asian restricted; somehow just less fun than DotA / HoN.