Comparing LoL, HoN, and DotA, and what it means for DotA 2.

I've been meaning to write this article for a long time now, but I've had to think a lot about exactly what I want to say, and try to present it in a way that is fair and honest as possible.  While most people who visit this subforum have probably played a lot of 1 game, maybe some of 2, I think it's very unlikely that the majority has really delved into all 3.  Having played thousands of games of each, I thought it would be nice for the community to do an extensive analyzation of all 3 games, their strengths, their weakness, what they excel at, and what lies in store for them in the future.  I'll try to be as fair as possible, though that doesn't mean I won't say something you don't like.  If you get offended, it isn't necessarily because "your game" has been attacked, but maybe you need to keep an open mind and realize that all 3 games have their ups and downs.  As always, I welcome discussion at the conclusion of the article, as long as you do it in a polite and logical manner.

Game Engine:
I thought I'd get this out of the way first because, while in some ways arbitrary, it can heavily affect the gameplay.

• DotA:  DotA's engine is old, very old now.  Considering that it was made on the WC3 engine developed in 2002, it's amazing how successful it has been and still continues to be.  I think the popularity of the game is really a testament to how in spite of an outdated engine, solid gameplay can keep a game alive.
• HoN:  HoN's engine is basically just an updated version of the WC3 engine.  It removes a lot of the bugs and limitations of Blizzard's engine, while adding new features like reconnect, advanced spectator mode features, advanced stat tracking, etc.  The latency and net coding is also much superior, but this is something that DotA 2 will probably address.
• LoL:   LoL's engine is also superior to WC3, but probably inferior to HoN's engine in terms of what it can do.  There is no replay system, in-game voice chat, public spectator interface, or in-game pausing, things the community has been wanting for awhile now, and are also very important for competitive play.  There is a reconnect feature, but it is often buggy, and causes some weird hiccups after being used.  The LoL engine and content is also over 3 Gigabytes in size, while the HoN engine can do more in less than 700 MB.

Payment Model:

• LoL:  League of Legends uses a free-to-play payment model.  The player starts out owning no champions, runes, or masteries, and has to spend time playing in order to "unlock" these advantages.  The player can pay actual money to unlock every hero in the game, and while they can't buy runes or masteries outright, they can pay for the ability to unlock them more quickly with IP/XP boosts.  Because of the unfair nature of the model, which gives people who have paid more, or played more, an advantage, many people consider League of Legends to be a predominately casual game.  Even the people (like me) who have played thousands of games, while spending no money, only have a small percentage of the total hero and rune pool unlocked.  It goes without saying that having a larger percentage of the hero pool available to you gives you an advantage over another player, regardless of your summoner level.
• HoN:  HoN used to have a single-payment entry model, that allowed the player to "buy" the game for $30, unlocking all the current and future content forever, but has recently also turned into a predominantly free-to-play system.  "Legacy accounts" (or people who purchased the game prior to the F2P conversion), still have access to most of the "power" content of the game, though with new mechanics like "Early Access", even Legacy players can be at a disadvantage to those who have paid money.  HoN's new model creates an interesting dichotomy where the people who bought a Legacy account are playing on a mostly even playing field, while all the new players, subject to the F2P system, are at a severe disadvantage until they have unlocked the entire pool.
• DotA:  DotA definitely has the fairest system, giving any person who has purchased (or downloaded) the game access to the entire pool.  There are no gimmicks or hidden catches, every person that plays the game has access to an equal amount of stuff.  This is why many people consider original DotA to still be the most competitive of the 3 games.  It is still unknown how Valve is going to approach the DotA 2 payment model (though we can all hope).

Learning Curve:

• LoL:  League of Legends undoubtedly has the easiest learning curve of the 3 games for many reasons.  Many of the obscure and confusing mechanics have been reduced or eliminated, while the game adds many new objects and features to make it easier to learn for newer players.  The gameplay has been simplified over the traditional DotA model, with the removal of things like denying, pulling, trees, rune spawns, scroll of teleports, bottle, etc.  In addition, things like proper mana usage and advanced juking tactics have been almost completely eliminated from the game (in fact some heroes don't even have mana).  Many people argue that the game has been "dumbed down" while others argue that DotA was too complicated.  Whatever the case, LoL is definitely the easiest to get into for the majority of players.
• HoN:  HoN's learning curve is similar to original DotA.  While the engine is much improved, most of the mechanics are exactly the same, and some things will continue to be really hard to understand until you have played the game for dozens of hours.  It does have some improvements though, with the ability to see allied and enemy mana bars, and a simplified shopping system as well.  Recommended item and skill builds are also available for every hero inside of the game, making it significantly easier for completely new players to understand the game.
• DotA:  DotA's learning curve is probably the worst of the 3, though that is partially to blame on the outdated engine it still uses.  There are many out-of-game guides and item builds, though the player will have to spend his own time finding them, then applying them to the actual game.  Confusing mechanics like denying, pulling, and warding aren't really explained to the player, and since there is no tutorial, it's something he/she has to pick up as they go along.  DotA does have one thing HoN doesn't however, which are dedicated bot maps, allowing players to test their skills against a pretty competent AI before jumping into the fray that is online DotA warfare.

General Gameplay:

• LoL:  League of Legends tends to be very forgiving compared to HoN and DotA.  For one thing, the player doesn't lose gold on death, making it much easier for him, even if he's doing badly.  In addition, positioning is much less important in League because of Summoner Spells like Ghost and Flash.  The argument is often made that Flash is balanced because everyone has access to it, but this is fallacious for two reasons:  1. The enemy is most likely Flashing TOWARDS their base, meaning in order to Flash after them, you put yourself into considerable danger by following them into a tower or their team.  2. It's unreasonable to expect every Summoner to take Flash in order to counter Flash (and if this is the only counter, it's a broken mechanic).  "Tanks" act very different in LoL than the other ARTS games.  In LoL, you can have a true tank, somebody who's job is to literally soak up as much damage as possible for his time and still survive.  To encourage this, armor, hp, and magic resistance are very easy to get in LoL, making it possible for almost any character to become a "tank", though it may not be the optimal build for them.  On this topic, LoL has had a problem with "Tanky DPS", also called "bruisers" being overpowered in their game for quite some time now; that is, a DPS hero that builds a lot of armor and magic resist, but still does plenty of damage as well.  LoL also has other mechanics which make the game easier.  Scrolls of Town Portal are no longer necessary because the "teleport" ability is built into the champion.  Couriers have been completely removed from the game so Bottle and item ferrying are no longer a concern.  Channeling spells, if interrupted, only have a portion of the cooldown, instead of having to wait the entire duration like in HoN or DotA.  Killing a champion over and over makes them worth less and less gold to the killer and revive more quickly, while killing a champion who has been doing well in terms of kills makes his respawn timer artificially high.  Buybacks have been removed completely, replaced by a Summoner Spell that is never taken in competitive play.  Mana and energy management are much easier in LoL than in the other games; Riot says on their website that being able to spam spells makes the game more exciting (not kidding), and many champions have no mana at all.  Because of the advent of AP, a large percentage of the pool can carry games, putting less of an emphasis on farming a single carry.  The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say that the gameplay of LoL is much easier and more forgiving than the other 2 games.
• DotA & HoN:  DotA and HoN tend to be much more hardcore in their mechanics.  Killing an enemy player will cause them to lose gold, in addition to your gaining gold and experience, making the deficit much larger than in League.  There is no consolation prize for feeding over and over.  A hero is worth the same amount of gold and experience no matter how many times they die, which often leads to good players focusing on bad players in order to kill them over and over and thus becoming extremely farmed.  Positioning in these 2 games is more important as well.  There are no items which reduce stun duration, or built-in spells to help you get away.  Many times a single stun can spell your doom, especially if you're a squishy hero without an escape mechanism.  There are no "true tanks" in DotA and HoN.  That is to say that no hero's job is simply to soak up as much damage as possible for his team.  There are heroes who can tank a lot of damage, but they can't just stand in the middle of a teamfight ignoring positioning and expect to survive.  A Strength hero's job in these games is usually initiation or secondary initiation, often with built-in CC mechanisms, to keep to enemies off their carries (and sometimes they are carries themselves).  In DotA and HoN, it's possible to basically keep down a single person forever.  If you can continue to kill a single character over and over, you can completely ruin the game for them.  Potions and bottles can be interrupted with damage, forcing the player to be much more careful when using any form of regen item.  Players have to buy teleportation scrolls in order to travel places quickly within the game, but the scrolls take up a valuable item slot, and since they cost money, make it take longer to get your next item.  Juking is a lot more advanced as well.  Trees can be cut down, run around, juked between, and ultimately used in ways that brush can't even compare to.  There is an item that grants complete magic immunity, which often makes Intelligence class heroes less lethal as the game goes on, while Agility types become stronger and stronger (also due to their scaling abilities).  This mechanic gives rise to the idea of "carries", or trying to get one or two heroes on your team as farmed as possible, while the rest of the team supports, so you can dominate the late game.  Buy backs are a reality in these 2 games, meaning that the player sometimes has to make the difficult choice of either waiting until he respawns, or spending quite a lot of gold to come back instantly in order to stop a push or win a battle.  While increasing the difficulty and complexity of the game, the choices available to the player in DotA/HoN are also greater, making it a deeper game, but also much less forgiving with mistakes.

Hero Design: 

• LoL:  The League of Legends hero pool is (like the game), the most simplified of the 3.  While there are some interesting and "cool" ideas, Riot has made it clear that they refuse to add any mechanics to the game that are confusing to the player, or could be considered "anti-fun".  Because of this, things like mana burn, long stuns, "throwing" allies, buff removal, damage while moving, "stealing abilities", teleporting back through time, and many more mechanics will probably never be added to the game.  Unfortunately, because of their unwillingness to innovate for fear of making the game too complicated, many of the "champions" are extremely similar to others, or simply an amalgamation of previous skills put together on a new hero.  For this reason, certain heroes are simply better than others, because based on the limited number of mechanics Riot will introduce to the game, their skillset simply works better (instead of being different).  With a new champion being released every 2 weeks, this problem is exacerbated, since as time goes on, more roles overlap, and more champions inevitably become obsolete.  On the other hand, it is much simpler for the player to understand how all champions work in LoL, because there are only a set number of abilities used in different combinations that they have to learn.
• HoN:  While not being afraid to innovate, HoN's hero designs tend to be very bland, or be jack-of-all-trades designs that excel at many things simultaneously.  It is not uncommon for a lategame carry in HoN to provide early game utility, something rarely seen in DotA.  3 of HoN's recently released heroes, Amun Ra, Geomancer, and Midas, have had exceedingly similar designs.  They are all tanky caster types with many magic-based aoe damage abilities and stuns.  Of course they all do this in slightly different ways, but it's simply a testament to the kind of direction S2 often takes with their hero designs, choosing to add "what's cool" or "what works best" instead of introducing new ideas or mechanics to the game.  In addition, they also follow the LoL model of introducing new heroes to the game every 2 weeks, causing major balance concerns, and many overlapping roles.
• DotA:  The DotA pool is probably the most complicated of the 3 (and definitely the largest), but also the most diverse and innovative.  3 of DotA's recently released heroes, Ancient Apparition, Phoenix, and Rubick, have added entirely new mechanics into the game; with AA giving the ability to completely stop regen and healing, Phoenix adding the ability to "resurrect" unless the egg is killed, and Rubick having the ability to "steal" spells from allied and enemy heroes.  DotA heroes are not released "until they are ready".  There is no set schedule for when they will be released, and because of this (in my opinion), they tend to be the highest quality of the 3 games.  DotA emphasizes quality over quantity, and at max, 2 heroes are released about every 4 months (so at about an 8x slower rate than the other games).

Item Design/Summoner Spells:

• LoL:  LoL's items and Summoner Spells succeed in making the game very forgiving and new-player friendly.  With boots and other items which reduce the duration of stuns, slows, and disables, a player can focus less on positioning and still do well.  Summoner Spells like Ghost, Cleanse, Flash, Exhaust, etc. are often used as "get out of jail free cards", foiling what would have otherwise been a successful gank, forgiving bad positioning, and often slowing down the progression of the game.  Defensive items are very cheap and easy to acquire, so any champion can become quite hard to kill if they choose to spend their money in that fashion.  The biggest problem with Summoner Spells (aside from circumventing good positioning), is that it's difficult for the player to know if the enemy has them ready to use or not.  Since most of the more powerful Summoner Spells can have a 3 minute or longer cooldown, it's hard for the player to tell, if he hasn't personally seen them being used, whether they are off cooldown for each individual champion.  This is a big deal because knowing, for example, whether an enemy's Flash is ready, can decide whether he is worth wasting your time to gank.  Flash, as a general rule, is taken over 90% of the time in competitive play.  The ability to forego positioning is too powerful to pass up, and people without Flash are at a severe disadvantage to those who have it.  
• DotA & HoN:  DotA and HoN's items are extremely similar to each other, with only a few minor differences.  In these 2 games, much of the utility of Summoner Spells in LoL can be bought with items.  For example, Heal in LoL is like Mekansm in DotA/HoN, Teleport is like Scroll of Town Portal, Ghost is like Phase Boots, etc.  The amount of items in DotA and HoN with activatable effects far exceeds the amount in LoL.  It is not uncommon to see a player fill his inventory up completely with items that have activated effects, while in LoL, a player can often go the whole game without a single item using an activated effect (except maybe the occasional potion if necessary).  

Team Composition:

• LoL:  Team Composition in League of Legends is pretty standard.  You want a tank, a support/healer, a mage, and a couple DPS.  One of these roles HAS to be a jungler (usually a tank or DPS).  These roles can shift and change a little bit (maybe replace a DPS with another support or a secondary tank etc.), but for the most part, it doesn't deviate from the standard.  
• DotA & HoN:  The Team Compositions for these 2 games are completely different than LoL.  The only type of hero you HAVE to have are Intelligence types, because they secure your early game (and are the backbone of your team).  However, the idea of "tanks", "carries", "supports", and "junglers" is often thrown out the window.  A jungler isn't necessary for success (it often hurts a team).  A team doesn't necessarily have to have a designated carry if they pick a strong enough push team and end the game fast enough.  Since there are no true tanks, Strength heroes aren't necessarily required in order to have success, though you do need an initiator, which STR excels at (but there are plenty of INT initiators as well).  Support is more or less of a "blanket" term used to describe heroes that require minimal farm and can buy items for warding and counterwarding.  Since any hero can do this however, the idea of "support" is more metaphorical, since even what are often considered support heroes in DotA and HoN can become farmed and deal a lot of damage.  The point is that the team compositions in DotA and HoN are much less written in stone, and more open to interpretation and change.  That isn't to say that there aren't popular lineups that work well, but those can completely change in a metagame shift, or be completely countered by the right team.  In other words, the picking phase of these 2 titles, like the game, is much deeper and more complex than LoL's.

Lane Composition:

• LoL:  The Lane Composition of LoL is also very standardized.  Almost every team will run 1-1-2 lanes with a jungler.  The reason you put the 2 bottom instead of top is because Dragon is bottom, and it's an important asset worth killing or protecting if the opportunity arises.  Obviously it's hard to protect when you have to walk halfway across the map.  Top solos because there is a jungler (obviously).  The jungler's job is to get the red and blue buff and gank as soon as possible, and because of this, "First Blood" is often scored by the jungler, or because of the jungler's ganking efforts.  The heroes that require the most farm usually take the solo lanes, and bottom lane will take carry + support depending.  While there can be some variation to this, the lane compositions are pretty stagnant, and will usually subscribe to this setup.
• DotA & HoN:  Lane Compositions in DotA and HoN are as diverse and varied as the games themselves.  In addition to the 1-1-2 setup of LoL, you can also run 2-1-2, 3-1-1 or 1-1-3 (trilanes are possible), 1-1-2 or 2-1-1 with a jungler.  You can have 1-1-2 with a roamer or you can have 1-1-2 with a jungler.  You can have 1-1-1 with 2 roamers, or with a roamer and a jungler, or even 2 junglers if you want to disrupt the enemy's jungle.  The point is that in HoN and DotA the lane compositions are much less set in stone.  They are much more complex and varied, and can change from game to game, depending on a team's particular strategy.  Deciding what your Lane Compositions will be also adds more depth to the picking phase.

Rune Spawns:

• LoL:  LoL takes a very simplified approach to "Rune Spawns" and replaces the traditional notions of runes with forest creatures who, when killed, will give you their buff.  Anybody who kills the person holding the buff, will get the buff themselves, on and on ad infinitum.  While this makes "runes" much easier and more simple for players to understand, and removes the luck involved in DotA and HoN, it also makes runes much less of a commodity since both sides get them.
• DotA & HoN:  In DotA and HoN, "Rune Spawns" are a lot more varied in type, as there are 5 different versions in all.  Runes also spawn near the center of the map, so both sides have an equal opportunity to reach them.  However, since only 1 spawns every 2 minutes, only one of the two teams can have it.  This often leads to a lot of aggressive and positional play as bot teams struggle for control of the runes throughout the game.  It is not uncommon to see hero clashes at the site of the runes, and it is also an extremely important place for warding and counter-warding as well.  There is an element of luck involved with DotA and HoN's rune systems.  The runes can spawn in 1 of 2 locations, which is always chosen at random, and the rune itself, of 5 possible types, is also chosen at random.  This means that if two people on opposite teams are standing at the 2 different rune spots, one is going to get lucky, and the other is not.  In addition, some runes are more convenient than others at different periods of the game.  I can not count on 2 hands how many times I've seen an ally or an enemy who is about to die find a lucky Haste rune on his escape path and get away because of it.  The only real difference between the runes in HoN and DotA is that in HoN, the rune does not spawn at the 0:00 mark (beginning of the game).  This has been a subject of much controversy in both games.

Denying:  
Denying, put quite simply, has been the subject of huge controversy for a long time.  It was controversial in DotA itself, even before League of Legends or HoN came into existence.

• LoL:  LoL handles denying by removing it from the game completely.  Their explanation for this is that it speeds up the game, reducing the average duration of the laning phase, and reducing the imbalance between melee and ranged heroes.  However, at least in competitive play, it doesn't always work this way.  There is a popular tactic called "zoning", in which a player who has an advantage in the lane will simply push the enemy out of EXP range of the opposing creeps, denying them from farming while allowing themselves to farm.  While zoning, the person executing this strategy will want to do as little damage as possible to enemy creep, in order to keep the enemy out of EXP range for as long as possible.  You don't see this tactic used very much in pub games, but in competitive play it's pretty common.  Unfortunately, it ends up slowing down the laning phase just as much (or more) than denying, often refuting Riot's statement that the removal of denying speeds up the game.
• DotA & HoN:  In these 2 games, denying is handled much in the same way.  An hero has the ability to kill his own creeps to deny the enemy gold and some (not all) EXP for killing it.  Because of the existence of the denying mechanic, laning and last hitting in DotA and HoN is also a much more complex situation.  Denying basically gives you twice as many creeps to last hit, making it a lot more taxing to the player.  In addition, creeps are already harder to last hit in DotA and HoN, as the heroes themselves do less damage to them than in LoL, and the creeps do more (giving them a higher chance of taking the kill).  Variable base damage also means that you can never be exactly sure how much you will do, sometimes causing luck to make you miss (or gain) creep kills.  Denying isn't all bad though:  Denying makes it so that the person (or people) in the lane with better last hitting skills will win the lane.  To counter this, the players have the option to simply attack the enemy players, attempting to kill them over and over in order to marginalize or diffuse their last-hitting advantage.  This means that heroes like Nevermore (Soul Stealer), Sniper (Flint Beastwood), and Razor (Corrupted Disciple), with an amazing last-hit ability, will often be the target of ganks to slow down their farm.  Denying can also be used in strategical ways.  If facing a trilane situation, the opposing team may send a single hero like Lich (Plague Rider), who, while destined to "lose" the lane, will be able to deny the enemy trilane a significant portion of gold and EXP with his ability.  "Creep pulling" is another tactic used in these games that allows a team to "pull" their own minions into neutral creep, completely denying the enemy EXP and gold.  Denying can also be focused on to keep the creep battles near your tower, opening up another option will allows your team to gank the lane more easily.  Denying will always be a controversial topic in the ARTS genre, but there is no doubt that it adds more skill and strategy to the game, even if it slows it down in the process.

Ganking:  

• LoL:  Ganking in LoL is much harder than the other 2 games for various reasons.  Summoner Spells alone can make it very difficult.  Towers also do significantly more damage, especially over time, than they do in DotA/HoN, so tower diving can be very dangerous.  The side lanes in LoL only have one main entrance to them, meaning it is usually very obvious where the enemy will come from if you are paying attention.  Middle lane has 2 large entrances covered in brush, but they are a significant distance from the center, giving the player time to walk or Flash away if he's paying attention.
• DotA & HoN:  Ganking in these games tends to be more successful than in LoL.  Lanes have multiple entrances to exploit, and through the mechanic of cutting down trees, new entrances can even be created.  Positioning is more important in ganking.  If you are caught out of position with a stun or disable, there is no escape card, often times it simply means that you are dead.  In DotA, there is an item that makes members of your team invisible for a certain duration, allowing more gank-oriented play.  In HoN, Striders allow supports and gankers to get around the map quickly in order to gank as well.  While wards can detect incoming ganks, the player can take the option to avoid ward sight by taking the long way around or using Smoke of Deceit in DotA.

Death Mechanics:

• DotA:  In DotA, dying or killing someone causes the victim to lose gold.  The amount of gold lost depends on the level of the player that has died, so later on in the game, the player will lose more gold for his death.  However, DotA has a mechanic called "reliable gold" which allows a player, who is focused completely on ganking and the killing of other heroes, to be able to take risks which will not result in the loss of his gold.  Reliable gold works by making the gold earned by the player as a result of the killing of an enemy hero not disappear upon death.  In other words, you won't lose gold you gained by killing someone until you spend it.  This causes the game to be a lot more aggressive and gank-oriented in a lot of ways than its HoN counterpart, which has no consolation for death gold, which will always be lost, regardless of the circumstances.
• HoN:  In HoN, gold is lost on death in a very similar method to DotA, but without the reliable gold mechanic.  This often leads to passive, riskless play, as a failed gank can result in a disaster for yourself or your team.
• LoL:  In LoL, gold is not lost on death ever.  The player will always retain the gold they have made, regardless of the circumstances, until they spend it.  While this takes out some of the skill and high stakes of ganking and sacrificing yourself for a kill, it is also a very forgiving mechanic, better for new players (who in the other 2 games, can literally be kept down forever).

Warding:

• DotA & HoN:  Warding in DotA and HoN is an extremely important mechanic.  Counter-warding is also important as well.  It is common practice for one (or several) heroes on any given team to be designated to the "ward placer" role, which basically means that they will spend a large amount of their time and income on buying and placing/destroying wards around the map.  This is important because wards are an extremely game-changing item, which reveal a large area, and are used to spot runes and enemy gank attempts well in advance.  While counterwards can be bought in these 2 games, they have no vision of their own (something has to spot for them), and they last half the duration of a regular ward, while having the same cost.  The cheapest item you can buy to counter wards (besides sentries) is a 700 gold purchase Gem of True Sight, which takes up an inventory slot, and is dropped on death (allowing it to be picked up by the enemy team), making it a very volatile and dangerous investment.
• LoL:  In LoL, warding, while still important, is greatly diminished in effect.  Wards only last half the duration, and reveal a much smaller area.  The ability to buy a 400 gold potion which gives you "true sight" (the ability to see invisible heroes and objects) turns the idea of warding into somewhat of a joke.  While 400 gold isn't free, the small investment required in order to basically keep the map clear of ward vision is worth its price tenfold.  Even though the "Oracles effect" is lost on death, spending another 400 gold is a drop in the bucket compared to the Gem of True Sight, which costs more, and can be destroyed or used by the other team after its carrier's death.  Not surprisingly, the Oracles potion item in LoL also counters heroes who rely on invisibility as a major mechanic (Twitch, Eve, Shaco) to an insane degree.

Carries and Lategame:

• LoL:  In LoL, a "carry", or a hero who is extremely powerful in the lategame, can not be kept down to the same degree that it can in the other 2 games.  Because a carry scales extremely well with items, and because a champion does not lose gold on death, eventually, a carry will become farmed in LoL, regardless of what the enemy team does.  The principle goal in LoL is to ensure that your carry gets farmed faster than theirs does, by protecting your carry and trying to distract theirs or kill them as much as possible.  In LoL, the lategame almost always turns into a war of teamfights.  Because of how difficult it is to ward once the enemy begins to buy Oracles, it is always unsafe to go alone, or to try to gank an individual member of the enemy team, since he may just be acting as bait.  The LoL lategame usually consists of 2 teams waiting on the edge of a teamfight over and over until 1 person on either side decides to initiate a team fight.  The team that wins the team fight then does as much damage to the enemy's base as possible until their opponents have been resurrected, after which the "team fight" proliferation phase begins again.
• DotA:  In DotA, a "hard carry", whose principle job is to basically farm well into the mid-late game and then begin to dominate or "carry" his team to victory, can be kept down much more easily than in the other games for several reasons.  As mentioned before, since ganking is so much easier in DotA than in LoL, it is easier to keep a carry down.  This is also because a carry loses gold when he dies, and because even if you die to sacrifice yourself in the process, you don't lose your reliable gold.  This makes teams without carries possible in DotA, if you run a heavy ganking and/or pushing lineup, increasing the potential strategy and diversity of the game.  In DotA, the lategame isn't always forced into team fights either.  Because of items like Smoke of Deceit, it is still possible to gank 1 or 2 enemy heroes safely and successfully, even late in the game.
• HoN:  In HoN, a carry, while easier to keep down than in LoL, is more difficult to keep down than in DotA.  The mechanic of "assist gold", as well as the absence of a "reliable gold" mechanic (or something similar), makes it much easier for carries to farm.  Assist gold in particular allows carries to benefit from ganking and teamfights without placing themselves directly in harm's way, or scoring the actual last hit like the would have to in DotA.  As an example, a Sand Wraith in HoN (Spectre in DotA) can simply press "R" in a team fight, while continuing to farm in his lane, and get a 5 kills worth of assist gold if his team does well, while hardly contributing to the battle at all.  This makes the use of carries and lategame heroes much more prevalent in HoN than DotA, to an extent at which they are almost required in the game; something many players disagree with.

Competitive Play:

• LoL:  Concerning competitive play, LoL has only been to a few major tournaments.  They plan on making their e-sports scene bigger as time goes on, but it hasn't happened yet.  Key features like pausing, tournament draft mode, and a public spectator interface are missing from the game, making many question how competitive it really is.  Also, the nature of the game itself, giving people who spend more money an advantage, whether that be in the form of more champions, runes, or rune pages, makes people question how competitive it will ever be.
• DotA:  DotA's competitive scene, in its prime, was huge.  Players from all around the world played to compete in major tournaments hosted in many different countries.  As the game has grown older however, the e-sports scene for DotA has died down a little bit, but many people expect DotA 2 to revitalize the competitive scene for this game.
• HoN:  Competitively, HoN has experienced middling success.  While it has a much greater scene that LoL, it hasn't taken off the way the developers probably want it to.  The playerbase is tiny compared to the other 2 giants, and therefore the amount of teams available is quite small in comparison.  As HoN's playerbase begins to steadily grow with the Free-to-Play transition however, their e-sports scene may grow as well.

Conclusion:
Based on the comparisons, the evidence, and the realities of all 3 games, several things become clear:  DotA is the most competitive of the 3.  This is mainly due to the fact that it has the best balance, the most varied hero pool, and has been around the longest, as well as being open to (in practice) more lineups and strategies than the other 2 games have presented thus far.  DotA is also the only game in which you can not buy power, which cements it into its spot as the most fair.  League of Legends is the most casual of the 3.  The mechanics of the game are the most forgiving and new-player friendly, many of the deep, skillful (and sometimes confusing) mechanics that alienated so many players in DotA have been removed, some of them have been replaced with more casual mechanics, some simply haven't been replaced at all.  LoL has the fastest learning curve, and the best community of the 3.  However, with the ability to "buy power" in the form of champions, runes, and rune pages makes it inferior to DotA in terms of fair play.  Heroes of Newerth is placed somewhere between DotA and LoL.  It's not as competitive as DotA (especially after the F2P transition) because it hasn't been around as long, and is less polished.  However, the balance is a little better than LoL's balance, and the gameplay mechanics are still, in general, as deep and varied as DotA's.  You can buy power in HoN (in the form of heroes and Early Access), but to a lesser degree than in LoL.

In conclusion, there is no reason to think that DotA 2, if it stays true to the successful formula of the original game, while making improvements and innovations to the engine and tutorial system, can not be the most successful of the 3, and possibly even the most competitive e-sport of all time.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment below.