League of Legends Review

Welcome to the League

League of Legends really is a game of two very different sides. On the one hand it’s definitely a very pretty, very fun little game and there’s a deceptive amount of variation and fun which can arise within the space of a single match. Juggling items and changing which spells or champions you’re using can have a profound impact on how you play the game and how easy you find it. It’ll doubtlessly enjoy a warm reception in it’s own little subculture fanbase.

On the other hand though, it’s a free game with content you can get for free that you’re being asked to pay for even though a lot of the promised content is either missing or ‘coming soon’. Why would you pay for something if it was unfinished and if you could get it for free elsewhere anyway?

However you approach the game, whether as a store-bought item or a microtransaction driven game, you’ve still got to content with a number of critical flaws within the design.

The difficulty curve is one of the most pressing problems, mainly because it doesn’t curve at all – you’re either a newcomer who hasn’t grasped how to use heroes effectively or you’re a pro who has memorised all the champion abilities and specced an invincible build. There’s no middle ground at all and everyone who plays is either one or the other, which is a big problem for a game with such a haphazard, slow and inaccurate matchmaking system. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a pro or a noob – running into the other party is never fun.


Difficulty is an issue which is only compacted by the lack of a decent tutorial or introduction – something which really is completely mystifying.

The lack of content and support is a serious issue for League of Legends. Just one map? Seriously? It’s not even a very complex level and for a game like this, where nearly all of the balancing and tweaking is centred around the characters, to not have a decent handful of levels is pretty unforgiveable.

The more we played the game the more we came to the conclusion that it was a product being designed and built for a very close-knit and insular group of gamers who had very specific ideas of what they wanted from the game. Namely, they wanted something which was identical to the original Defence of the Ancients but that looked prettier. If that’s true then it’s an aim they achieved, because that’s pretty much exactly what LoL is; DotA 2.0.


The problem is that while DotA 2.0 is fine for that group, it’s pretty crappy for everyone else. League of Legends utterly fails to live up to any of the expectations we’d have for a fully priced retail product in every single way except for the artstyle.

It’s a shame because, yes, the actual game is a lot of fun. The idea and mechanics that are built up around using champions and improving them through a specific chain of upgrades is one which we approve of heartily and had a lot of fun with. It’s just that the fun didn’t last and after the third or fourth match we wanted to try a different level. We also wanted to try playing against people at our own skill level. And we wanted to browse the in-game store. And so on and so on. League of Legends made this impossible.

Simply put, League of Legends feels like a demo for a final product that we’re promised will appear at some later date. Unfortunately, we can’t write a review on promises anymore than we can built a city on rock and roll. We can’t assign any value to a product that’s being given away for free in almost exactly the same form either.

League of Legends is in many ways an enjoyable experience despite the lack of content, but as critics we have to assess whether it’s worth paying for. This isn’t and even if you’re a big DotA fan then you still should not pay for this game, because even if the game was complete enough to warrant your cash then you can still get it for free anyway.

Score Guide