Paragon: Just downloaded it this weekend and my thoughts.

Coworker of mine routed me to Paragon as I talk about League often. I wanted to give it a try so dropped $20 to get my foot in the door. Didn't do any tutorials and just jumped straight in. Very easy learning curve, the skill system is very intuitive the descriptions of your skills are all there when selecting upgrades. The champs (I've only played a couple) have interesting skills and are visually VERY impressive. It's still late beta so the jungle creeps aren't skinned yet (they are little purple, red, blue, and white models that look like clay) but the game play is very compelling.

It's cross platform so you have PC and PS4 players all hanging out in the same games, getting matches is VERY fast right now, for it being a beta that's very impressive. The layout of the map is very much like SR with three lanes, with two towers leading up to the inhibs and nexus (jungle is VERY different and adds such a great flavor to the game - the path ways in and out make for great plays if you can intercept their jungle and pinch them in.... it's also a place where it's very easy to die if you don't use vision or don't play it safe.

For Game Play I played mostly with Sparrow who would most closely be qualified as an ADC, all of your skills... are skillshots. This makes the game very fun, as you can counter move and tease your max range in engagements. On a whole the game is much less snowball than League, being moderately behind isn't a death sentence.

Balance seems incredibly good for a Beta game - Assassins are CRAZY on damage, BUT if they miss their combos they are just red meat for the platter as they are immensely squishy. Tanks can literally stand under the tower, and you pew pew them, but they can soak A LOT before disengage - but they don't do a lot of damage. ADC's seem like the middle ground there. Mages, like League, have amazing burst potential and some CC to help them disengage; they are hard gated by their mana though.

You have a standard movement, which is slow, then you have travel speed which enables you to get around quickly, but you have to be out of combat to engage it. Very fun mechanic for pursuit (running doesn't typically help unless the pursuit isn't very skilled.)

The potential for big plays is amazing, ganks are REAL, if you aren't warding, red meat. Highly recommend people give it a try when it comes out of Beta and will be free or just jump on the open beta when it comes. League still has my heart, but this game has a very real chance of becoming the next big thing.