Where are you getting four games in the next two years?
COT has a tentative 2018 release date and the last I heard Ship of Heroes had a plan to release a smaller version of SOH to start with. VO is getting ready for their first official alpha. if you're referring to Heroes and Villains I haven't heard of them having any kind of official release date announcement.
Beyond that, I think it's a mistake to count Champions Online out. They have been doing a lot of powerset revamping-- and while that does often annoy me-- it is a sign of developer commitment to the game. At this point-- barring a Champions Online 2 or perhaps a "Champions Online Legends ala the Secret World"-- I think the game will continue as it has been. Even though CO is sorely lacking in content IMO, I don't think any of the newer games will have more than it does when they go live. And quite frankly, the costume creator in Champions is severely underestimated-- there are things you can do in it that were impossible in COX and I am not altogether sure they will be possible in any of the successor games. At least, I haven't seen or heard of them offering the same variety of textures CO has or the ability to alter body proportions as much as CO does.
Beyond that, COT still has the largest pool of financial resources of any of the successor games to my knowledge as neither VO or SOH were able to obtain their desired funding from Kickstarter. That gives them the edge over the others as they still have reserves left over to help them launch their game and pay for all the sudden surprises or unexpected expenses that may pop up.
VO's staff strikes me as being very determined to launch their game and I have been impressed by their livestreams. VO has a very strong visual kinship with COX and that may weigh heavily in their favor with the COX vets.
SOH has impressed me with how much they have gotten done given how much later they started than the other successors. They have done very well with their PR and I think they might have been able to succeed with a Kickstarter that had a lower target.
Ultimately I think the biggest factor in the success of any of the games will be who gets to market first. For better or worse, how well the first launch does will impact how people see the others. Right now, it's still too close to call IMO.
I was counting H&V, they haven't given any indication that they are abandoning the project so there is no reason not to. and I said roughly the next two years as a best guess.type thing given their average projections.
You are right about CO's character creator, it's insanely good, but it's also the only big draw for the game beyond PvP as it still has no end game and adds new content at the speed of a geriatric snail. I do strongly hope one of the successors borrows from it's creator though.
CoT definitely looks like it is the most ambitious but that's also caused it to progress a bit more slowly then the other projects which could hurt it if another arrives first and steals it's thunder.
Valiance seems to be the closest to completion but SoH has made very impressive progress in a very short time, one of them will probably be finished first.
In general, we are looking at Valiance Online arriving early 2018, City of Titans is scheduled for late 2018, and Ship of Heroes is due for release in 2019. However, other than each being inspired by City of Heroes, with a similar template, these are very different games.
City of Titans is a modern day comic book movie setting.
Valiance Online is a near-future (2090's IIRC) sci-fi setting.
Ship of Heroes is a distant future space opera setting.
With such a diverse collection of settings, to say that one will dominate or destroy the others is utterly preposterous.
It's a simple matter of people and money. Regardless of what differences they have they are all still going to be in direct competition with each other and most people will not play them all due to limited time and/or money. There are only so many people who will play them particularly if a lack of investment in advertising leads to little new blood being brought in. The fact is, whether you want to admit it or not, it's almost impossible that all will be successful unless they all somehow bring in thousands or more new people who have never played Superhero MMOs before, the existing customer pool simply isn't big enough to support all these games.