The username I bought is Cornix, though through beta I used faelirae and LonePenguin as well.
HoN's emphasis on carries dropped significantly recently, the big reason for the emphasis was that originally some 'orb' effects stacked in HoN as opposed to DotA. I.e. you could stack lifesteal on top of shieldbreaker or sange and yasha. You now no longer can (other than abyssal skull but that's the same as DotA iirc.)
Overall I like HoN more than DotA and I despise LoL, I know DotA is the original, and neither of my two favorite characters have made it to HoN (yet) in Windrunner and Enchantress, but HoN just feels and looks smoother.
People bitch every time a new hero comes out that S2 sucks at balancing, but the same thing happens in DotA.. they release a hero and it's either complete shit or omg awesome... and then it gets tweaked and it all works. Forsaken Archer was omg terrible and engineer was absolutely ridiculously amazing, and now they're both heroes you only see some of the time. Chipper isn't even all that good, he needs rockets less often but otherwise he's fine. I'm sure Belphagor will either be stupid or outstanding when he comes out, but that's what always happens.
Besides.. none of the new characters have measured up to the 'top tier' yet anyway... Jeraziah Tempest Plague Hellbringer Demented Shaman Behemoth are still omgridiculous... and the only really difficult one to play is behemoth, and even that is a stretch... but those characters were absolutely ridiculous in DotA too (Omniknight, I forget who tempest is, lich, warlock, dazzle, earthshaker).