This review seems incredibly biased, and in numerous cases factually incorrect and in some major ways too. 'Monovax' summed up a lot of it so just read his post i suppose. I am also baffled how lots of heros is both a pro and a con, and yet theres apparently not enough maps (of which there are the same amount of dota & LoL combined). I wonder what the magic perfect number for both maps/heros is..

I'm actually fairly disgusted by this review. I won't even touch on the too many heroes is a negative.. enough people have already. I've played both LoL and HoN for quite some time. I still laugh at the fact that LoL doesn't have a functional spectator mode or the ability to review demos within the game. HoN has been doing this pretty much since launch, and while it was a bit rough in the beginning, everything was functional when I was playing. In fact the features were extremely impressive. It is true that HoN may not be for the newest of newbies if they aren't willing to take some time to learn the game. A lot of hardcore players from Dota went straight to this game. 

  Which now touches on your review of innovation. I don't think you understood the fact that this is what Dota players were asking for. A more polished stand-alone version of DOTA that had all of its features and more at the touch of a button instead of typing in commands. A functional rating system, various game types, on-demand demos, and functional spectator mode. It was supposed to be like Dota. Now I haven't played the F2P version. I don't personally think I would like it, as when I played my 'legacy' account, there wasn't anything I didn't have access too. I also thought that was amazing compared to LoL. I promise I have spent wayyy more money on LoL than I ever did in HoN. 

As far as your 'nothing else out side of the hero is all that interesting' statement. I found the hilarious sound packs, and other addons and modifications to be extremely entertaining. Not to mention the addons people were making for the game. Very useful, and very fun. 

The only thing that really sucked to me about this game was the community. Pretty much everyone was an a-hole from the 1400 to the 1700+ brackets of play. It actually surprised me how many people abused voice comm (yet another feature which is freaking amazing that LoL does not have). So many people would rage and cuss other players out in the 1400 bracket who were new and trying to learn this game. This was fairly disgusting to witness, and would pretty much kill most new player experiences. 

LoL is fun, and easy going. While it too is competitive.. I always found the challenge in HoN to be much greater. Please have someone else who has actually played the game do a decent review. 

Pros

 Large number of heroes

Cons

 Too many heroes to choose from

wait, what?

"There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type. It is really only there to save people five to fifteen minutes, but seeing as no one ever plays it, you can take that long wait for a match to start at times."

are you sure? last time i played it (about an hour ago) you started at level one, and  im also pretty sure people do play it since ive been playing only cm for last 5months and never had problems finding a game.

i wont bother reading any further since its obvious that the whole article is full of garbage.

What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P

While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.

It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.

I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.

If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.

For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).

Originally posted by jpnz

What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P

While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.

It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.

I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.

If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.

For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).

It was $30 not $60, and the players who paid still get that hero for free just not straight away.

Originally posted by jpnz

What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P

While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.

It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.

I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.

 

If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.

For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).

 

$30 not 60.. and there were many times where they would sell accounts for $10. The reason people are 'defending' this is because this article is rubbish, and most of it is inaccurate. Such as your $60 statement. I'd be surprised if you've even played the game at all. 

Originally posted by afropuff420

Originally posted by jpnz

What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P

While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.

It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.

I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.

 

If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.

For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).

 

$30 not 60.. and there were many times where they would sell accounts for $10. The reason people are 'defending' this is because this article is rubbish, and most of it is inaccurate. Such as your $60 statement. I'd be surprised if you've even played the game at all. 

A lot of it was subjective. But I felt the reviewer is reviewing it from the 'DOTA-WAR3' player point of view.

Perfectly valid point of view and while I didn't agree with everything, I can see why he would have that opinion.

Actually I paid $60 since I'm from down-under. :P

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by afropuff420

Originally posted by jpnz

What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P

While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.

It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.

I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.

 

If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.

For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).

 

$30 not 60.. and there were many times where they would sell accounts for $10. The reason people are 'defending' this is because this article is rubbish, and most of it is inaccurate. Such as your $60 statement. I'd be surprised if you've even played the game at all. 

A lot of it was subjective. But I felt the reviewer is reviewing it from the 'DOTA-WAR3' player point of view.

Perfectly valid point of view and while I didn't agree with everything, I can see why he would have that opinion.

 

Actually I paid $60 since I'm from down-under. :P

 

What has this article to do with "from the WC3-DotA players perspective?"

Most of what he wrote is just biased and untrue on the top of that.

He also rates things that HoN did way better than LoL or DotA as worse than both even

though theres no doubt that S2 did a better job with it than any other game.

Most ridiculous is that LoL which has almost not social aspects gets praised for it while HoN

does the same way better but actually gets bashed for it.

Reading this article makes me wonder if the guy actually played the game.

PS: If someone really wants to make a review of this game he should at least spend 6+ months playing it.

Everything else is rubbish and uneducated opinions.

6 months would seem like a good amount of time to give such a game a decent shake. I've been playing since beta and am certainly not afraid to point out the games flaws. This review however just picked on things that were either completely made up or subjective. When also compared with the LoL review the things HoN was slammed for just doesn't make sense.

I would think MMORPG.com of all places would understand why certain games need more time playing them to be able to give a full and accurate review.

We wouldn't expect this kind of inaccurate biased reviewing of an MMO so why should we accept it for an ARTS (screw the MOBA term :p )?

What a load of, pardon my french, bullshit this review was. But it's not the first time this happens.

Holy shit.... This review. Maybe it was a huge mistake to take seriously any mmorpg.com review in the past 'cause this one is absolute garbage. 

I did a quick comparison between their LoL and HoN review...

HoN Aesthetics: 7/10

LoL Aesthetics: 9.5/10

Except that HoN has a proper out-of-game UI with a nice shop and design and that smoothly transitions into the ingame enviroment and that HoN DOES have both stronger and (in my opinion) better looking graphics, then ok... oh wait, in that case HoN should get the higher rating here. LoL is pretty lackluster in it's GUI and the ingame heroes are like moving gif images. Seriously, 9.5?!



HoN Gameplay: 7/10

LoL Gameplay: 8.25/10

Except that the only thing the reviewer does is do a SHORT comparision between HoN and Dota nothing more is said about HoN... The fact that the game play very much the same as Dota is NOT a valid point to lower the score, the logic: "wow this game plays similar to a game that is very very good, let's lower the score"... In the LoL review they do a proper explanation of the game.



HoN Innovation: 3.5/10

LoL Innovation – 10

Wait WHAT?! a full score?! In the HoN review he also bashes HoN for lacking extra features... The extra features is what LoL is lacking and HoN does have. All the things we take for granted like a good spectator mode, kick, rmk, pause, guilds, bla bla bla is pretty much crap or non-existent in LoL. LoL is pretty much Dota without juking (grass instead), different jungle creeps and no deny and it gets 10 in inovation...



HoN Polish: 5/10

LoL Polish – 7.0/10

"There is no official replay, spectator, guild, or pause system" in LoL he states. He even criticize LoL on the GUI. But he does seem to forget the CRAZY LOADING TIMES everytime you join a freaking game because you have to wait for everyone to fully load all rescources every game, but anyway... In the HoN review it's just stated that the game takes some ram-memory and thus gives it a 5/10, much lower than LoL, seriously it's the ONLY thing that he criticizes...



HoN Longevity: 6/10

LoL Longevity – 10

Again, properly going thru LoL but just quickly brushing the surface on HoN...



HoN Social: 4/10

LoL Social – 6.5

What?! LoL doesn't even have a guild system, I'm not even sure it has a proper chat channel system and it does NOT have VoIP-function. Despite this fact the thing that lowers HoNs score is the guildsystem, WHAT?! They even state some of the things LoL is lacking (that HoN has) in the LoL review and still they give LoL a better score in social. How is this possible?! They are not even graded on the same scale obviously!!! This is the one thing LoL should have a score of like 2-3 and HoN should be in a 8-10, 100%.



HoN Value: 8/10

LoL Value – 6.0

woot? Well, I... what?... eh... *reading both sections again*, I think that... well... maybe... eh. bye

- MrPomac

Really bad review. It's hypocritical, biased, and idiotic. And I don't even like Heroes of Newerth anymore.

First off, having "too many heroes to choose from" is a mistake. League of Legends has almost as many characters as Heroes of Newerth. Unlike League of Legends heroes, HoN heroes generally do not stagnate or go by a generic formula (though there ARE exceptions: Midas, for instance, feels like a bad copy of Pyromancer or Myrmidon). There is even a Single Draft mode to limit your choices and force you to learn heroes, effectively holding your hand in hero selection.

How exactly do you rate the social aspects of the game? Your experiences with the community are based on your luck (as in the personalities of those you happened to be matched with), your skill, and your own patience and personality. Your mileage WILL vary. This is no fault of the game if you got raged at by your teammates or taunted by your foes. This kind of terrible community exists in every single game in this genre (actually, every single online game ever).

The fact that HoN even offers a clan system is a bonus. To my knowledge, no other AoS game does this.

Honestly, longevity is subjective. The game HAS proven its current longevity, but this is a quickly crowding genre with major releases on the horizon. Their mileage will vary, for better or worse.

The innovation score was missing the point. HoN was originally meant to be what DotA2 is now becoming- DotA on a better engine with more features. This is why over half the cast are ports or semi-ports. They did, however, make skill changes to a number of ported heroes to adapt them to their liking. Torturer, for instance, has a skill that is much different in function from Lezrac's. Kraken is very different from Tidehunter.

Later on, issues between S2 and Icefrog resulted in legal action, preventing future full ports of any DotA heroes. From this point, all new HoN characters were either semiports or new inventions. I would argue that this is where the game started going downhill, because, let's face it.... S2 can't design a good  hero concept to save their lives. Now Amun-Ra destroys any enjoyment that can be gained from pub games and the meta was forced to change from DotA style to this hideous gank-happy tower-diving style that effectively leaves one team in the dust and keeps them there.

I would revise the score to 6.5..... it USED to be 7.5-8 worthy...

Originally posted by Painlezz

I played HoN from the very beginning...  Hell, I even used to give LoL players crap for being noobs...

 

I then gave LoL a chance and I came to realize it is a much better game.  HoN has been a close DOTA clone since day one.  LoL really tried to take from DOTA the best elements but create a NEW game.  They didn't copy all the exact same items, heros, and abilities with a few minor new additions.  Yes, all games have direct damage and damage over time abilities...  So if you use that logic every RPG game is a clone of every other RPG game.

 

Anyway, LoL offers a much more enjoyable experience for all players.  I've come to realize (as stated by other members here) that HoN is only for the super elitist e-peen groups.  People who want to share their KDR stats with everyone, people who think that having an A.D.D. condition giving them the need to last hit every target on the map for hours upon hours of play time is a good thing.

 

PvE farming (and last hitting) is not an enjoyable aspect of MOBA's and that's exactly why LoL removed it completely.  They wanted to focus on hero usage, skill usage, and team gameplay.

 

The fanboy arguments are just as invalid here as they are everywhere else.  Many of us have played both games and found one or the to be more enjoyable or flat out better.  To reference a similar subject...  You can hate on WoW and flame WoW fanboys all you want, but the fact still remails, WoW is/was the biggest for a reason.  LoL is the biggest for a reason...  More people enjoy it = more people play it = it's generally considered better.

true!

I love how wrong he got all the fact in here, and for the latest post i can tell the only reason more is playing LoL is because it was made by a much larger company which had a lot more advertising than HoN. The only players who would see HoN would be players playing DotA which followed DotA on a forum.

LoL has lasthitting aswell and a friend of mine agree with me (hes a LoL fanboy) that HoN is much harder than LoL which of course is a "pro" in terms of a game since easy games become quite boooring

Originally posted by bbacardi

I did a quick comparison between their LoL and HoN review...

HoN Aesthetics: 7/10

LoL Aesthetics: 9.5/10

Except that HoN has a proper out-of-game UI with a nice shop and design and that smoothly transitions into the ingame enviroment and that HoN DOES have both stronger and (in my opinion) better looking graphics, then ok... oh wait, in that case HoN should get the higher rating here. LoL is pretty lackluster in it's GUI and the ingame heroes are like moving gif images. Seriously, 9.5?!



HoN Gameplay: 7/10

LoL Gameplay: 8.25/10

Except that the only thing the reviewer does is do a SHORT comparision between HoN and Dota nothing more is said about HoN... The fact that the game play very much the same as Dota is NOT a valid point to lower the score, the logic: "wow this game plays similar to a game that is very very good, let's lower the score"... In the LoL review they do a proper explanation of the game.



HoN Innovation: 3.5/10

LoL Innovation – 10

Wait WHAT?! a full score?! In the HoN review he also bashes HoN for lacking extra features... The extra features is what LoL is lacking and HoN does have. All the things we take for granted like a good spectator mode, kick, rmk, pause, guilds, bla bla bla is pretty much crap or non-existent in LoL. LoL is pretty much Dota without juking (grass instead), different jungle creeps and no deny and it gets 10 in inovation...



HoN Polish: 5/10

LoL Polish – 7.0/10

"There is no official replay, spectator, guild, or pause system" in LoL he states. He even criticize LoL on the GUI. But he does seem to forget the CRAZY LOADING TIMES everytime you join a freaking game because you have to wait for everyone to fully load all rescources every game, but anyway... In the HoN review it's just stated that the game takes some ram-memory and thus gives it a 5/10, much lower than LoL, seriously it's the ONLY thing that he criticizes...



HoN Longevity: 6/10

LoL Longevity – 10

Again, properly going thru LoL but just quickly brushing the surface on HoN...



HoN Social: 4/10

LoL Social – 6.5

What?! LoL doesn't even have a guild system, I'm not even sure it has a proper chat channel system and it does NOT have VoIP-function. Despite this fact the thing that lowers HoNs score is the guildsystem, WHAT?! They even state some of the things LoL is lacking (that HoN has) in the LoL review and still they give LoL a better score in social. How is this possible?! They are not even graded on the same scale obviously!!! This is the one thing LoL should have a score of like 2-3 and HoN should be in a 8-10, 100%.



HoN Value: 8/10

LoL Value – 6.0

woot? Well, I... what?... eh... *reading both sections again*, I think that... well... maybe... eh. bye

- MrPomac

Is there any way to ask for a MMORPG.com editor to review this article. Taking the biases and fanboyism apart the reviewr made seriously inaccuarate statements that proved he did not know exactly what he was doing.

In short the quoted post points out most of the flaws with this review.

Oh and btw, ex-HoN player here, iam not defending HoN over LoL or anything but there are so many things here that are just not true, they cannot remain like this.

Holy shit this must be the most biased and worst review ever seen in this site.

Originally posted by cpcraft

Sir, u have to play HoN for 1.5+ years to really know how good the game is... im serious...

 

(hon veteran since alpha alpha beta alpha)

cpcraft

Sir, u have to play HoN for 1.5+years to really know how crappy HoN became.... i'm serious.

Seriously, yes HoN was great in beta, or at least at his start.

But in the last month HoN became such a crappy game.

S2games is a bad compagny. It's a complete shit compagny. Their Free to Play model is real crap. Their update are like some of the worst I could ever see. Or I might tell, the lack of update ?

Now it's all about making cash and don't care about balance and such. HoN is dying. Period.

I signed up just to let you know how absolutely horrible this review was. The author doesn't really seem to have played the game at all, and to be quite honest I would recommend to have this article rewritten by someone who is not a LoL-fanboy.

MOBAs, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, are the new hot trend in the MMO market. 

 - Oh really?

You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type.

 - Come on. Did you even play casual mode?

a big green button, “Play Now”

 - Actually, the button is red. Red | Green , just in case you were confused.

I could go on and on, but I suspect that others will point out the numerous other flaws in this article. And oh yes, do you feel that a large number of heroes is a pro or con? Both is not an option here.

(Also, why does the Andromeda in the screenshot have two staffs of the master?)