League of Legends: a review

I've always had a special love for video / computer games, but especially competitive, online ones. The game that's captured my attention (and that of several close friends) lately has been League of Legends. For those unfamiliar, it's a game based on the Warcraft 3 custom map Defense of the Ancients, or DotA for short. You have two camps of 5 players facing off, with each trying to destroy the buildings in the other's base. Whichever camp kills the other's main building (Nexus) first wins. Every so often a wave of units will spawn and attack in the direction of the other camp's base in one of three preset lanes which both teams have protective attack towers in. Each player (called a summoner) controls one unit, called a Champion, that they choose before the game. This champion is free to move about the map anywhere and utilizes various skills and attacks to destroy units, buildings, and enemy Champions. Your summoner gains experience and "influence points" that can be used to purchase runes (which augment your champion's skills during the game) or other champions after each game (more for a win than a loss).

So what are the pros and cons of this game? Here is my quick breakdown:

Pros:

-The Built-in matchmaking system makes it easy to find a 5v5 game with those of similar skill levels. The system is a work in progress and mismatches still occur, but even good players play poorly sometimes. Human error ensures that no analytical system is ever perfect.

-The Arranged team feature makes it simple to get all your friends in the same game AND make sure that you all end up on the same team. That, coupled with the matchmaking system, ensures that your team of 5 (for example) ends up against a similarly constructed team of 5. Nobody likes a blowout.

-The surrender feature ensures that no games go excessively long when the outcome is a foregone conclusion. I wish it was 20 minutes instead of 25 since it requires a 4-1 majority to invoke, but this is still a smart enough inclusion that I mark it a 'pro.'

-The runebook rewards players for leveling up a particular summoner and makes them more effective in game as slots are added for new runes each level.

-The in-game store is one of the coolest features I've ever seen. You can either use Riot Points (which cost money) or Influence Points to unlock certain products within the game.

-New content is introduced often. The Riot Games staff works hard to ensure that the servers are up, release patches about once a week, and includes new bundled features like Champions plus skins for Riot points. Feedback is encouraged on the forums, and the developers actually read the forums (how about that!)

Cons:

-Mismatches in the matchmaking system seem to occur quite often. The most glaring problem is that the game assumes an arranged team, even at level, say, 2, is of equivalent skill to a team of five level 30s that don't know eachother. To me, this is a gross overestimation as not many people are going to pubstomp at this stage of the game.

-Server downtime has been a frustration, though minor. As bugs are worked out of the game, hopefully this will be self-limiting

-Queue dodging one of the frustrating aspects of the game is that someone can simply skip the queue at champion selection if the one they wanted is gone.

-Inability to change in-game name is a minor problem, but rather annoying since you are stuck with the name you pick with no option to change it. A nice solution might be an option for IP or RP to change your name, maybe once per account maximum.

Overall, the game is extremely fun and I give it a 10/10.