League of Legends
Let's be clear, it's a bad game. But it has features that make it so damned compelling. Not fun, but compelling. I played it for 4 years in college, because it was the only game I had time for. 40 minutes of playtime a day usually isn't enough time to game, but with League that was enough for at least one match.
Winning isn't about how well you did, but about which player on which team throws the entire game. All it takes is one retarded teammate not grouping up for teamfights, or getting caught out of position and getting instantly shredded, making every teamfight a 4 v 5. Or somebody not knowing when to kill Baron. The snowbally nature of the game makes it so that once somebody has gone 3/0, in the first five to six minutes, they are pretty much an unstoppable force of nature that takes an entire team to takedown. So you can be doing great in your own lane, but along comes some scrub in bottom lane that feeds their ADC and now the game is thrown.
There are way too many champions for anybody to have a chance at learning them all, and how to counter or play against them. Even back in 2010 it took me ages to realize I had to poke Tryndamere and play safe or die once he used his ult to become unkillable for five seconds. A lot of champions you have to just pickup and play in order to understand how to play against them, but that entails waiting until they are on free rotation or buying them. There are a lot of pubstomp champions that aren't broken, but will completely wreck new players. You have to know that Yi's 2nd ability gives him 300 armor, and the the only way to kill him after that is to stun him out of it. You have to know that Tryndamere can become invincible for 5 seconds. You have to know that Nasus needs to be ganked by the jungler or harrassed hard so he can't power up his Q with minion kills all day. You have to know that Garen's insane healing can only be stopped by continually poking him long range. You have to know to buy an all seeing potion vs Eve, or else she is pretty much invisible the entire game. You have to know that Darius' ult deals true damage and refreshes, and his pull has range and a specific cooldown. I could go on. There's probably 20 pubstomp champs in league. Champs that wreck new players and can wreck entire teams if they happen to get a few early kills.
League is free, but that's a bad thing, because over the years I must have spent $300 on it. I played League for a week this past month trying to get back into it. Half my games were horrible and over before they started due to other players playing dumb. I tried all sorts of different builds only to realize that there are a select few items that are simply better than any other items on certain champs. Every ADC will use Bloodthirster, Berserker Greaves, Infinity Edge, and Phantom Dancer. Every tanky AD top should use Black Cleaver, Merc Treads, Warmog's, and Spirit Visage. most AP mids should get Sorc Boots, Hourglass, Spellbinder, and Deathcap.
Also the game only has a single map.
