Ever wanna make love to a hot little 17 year old then wanna punch it in the face when your done? No? Well that has been my time with Heroes of Newerth aka HON. I am a Mac user and there is not much of a game library for it. One day on my quest for a decent MMO for Macs I stumbled across Heroes of Newerth. At the time League of Legends was becoming the monster it is known as today and HON was the main competitor. Upon my research of the two games I discovered there was a Mac version of HON. It was at that moment that I had begun my journey into the Hells of Newerth.
Let's start with the learning curve of this beast. As a new player of any game your first intuition is to just play the game. I suggest you DO NOT skip the tutorials for this game. The learning curve is about as steep as Mt. Everest, and if you skip over the tutorials you are doomed. The tutorials cover the basics but once you are released into the wild you are on your own. You might want to jump right into a game but you need to know something first. NEVER PLAY A GAME THAT DOESNT HAVE THE WORD NOOBS IN THE TITLE. I did just this and got beaten like a sad baby seal. I was so confused that my team was suffering for my stupidity. I am ordering you to put your pride to the side for a second and play as many noob games as you can. People in those games will teach you how to play HON more so than the tutorials. There is sort of a code of ethics in this game. You play a certain character, or Hero, a certain way. If you play the Hero the way it is not intended to be played then you are setting yourself up for the worst. They don't tell you that in the tutorials. So not only will you have no clue what you are doing but your team will suffer as well.
I play Starcraft. That is a very competitive game. Luckily there is an option to play alone in that game. HON is all about the team work. Every match you are teamed up with other usually more experienced players. Now being the noob of the group I tend to struggle with things a bit. Your team mates will get mad at you. They will call you names. I was once told to delete my HON game from my computer and never play it again. The funny thing about that game was that we won in the end. The player base of HON is probably the most frustrating part about the game. If you are not playing with other noobs you become subject to name calling and whining. I swear to god some of these players are so worried about loosing that if they do loose they kick their dogs on the way to their bedrooms to cry in a pillow for the next three hours. Out of the seven or so games I have played (that doesn't seem like much but when the games last upto 45 minutes its a lot) I can recall being bitched at in every one of them except for two maybe. It is almost as if the army had infighting and the enemy is just there to wait for them to either leave or hurt them badly. It's a shame that such a fun game is marred with an immature, crybaby playerbase.
Which brings me to my final point. This game is FUN! I am currently having a blast with it. Once you get a grasp on how to play it and start winning it becomes a completely different game. The way the heroes play and the way the game looks are fantastic. There is nothing more satisfying than killing off other heroes in a match. Despite all the infighting and immature happenings winning cures everything. If you can get comfortable with the learning base, and take the playerbase with a grain of salt, then you should have no problem enjoying Heroes of Newerth. If you cant deal with any of that, run.