it's League of Legends by a nearly 3:1 margin.
Now our PvP at the time, late 2005/early 2006, pre IO, had very asymmetrical one on one. Tank Vs Scrapper tended to be a draw. Someone who could move quicker than their opponent tended to have an upper hand. Blaster Vs Melee was a match in avoiding. Balance was better on teams of course but even then gameplay and powers were very different between PvE and PvP.
Plus there was rooting.
I just thought I'd comment on this while I'm here.
League of Legends PvP is extremely close to what CoH was.
Both are team based
Both have "roles" that need to be filled (Damage/ADC, Support etc.)
Both involve a lot of movement and kiting
Both were simplistic (PreIO/Incarnate age) - Funny enough, CoH PvP builds typically consisted of 4 main attacks, same as LoL
Both have rooting
Both have tons of options for gameplay style/character
Both involve a base with drones, winning is pushing your foe back (As was zone wars)
Both have advanced tactics of ambushing/baiting/deceiving/tricking
Biggest of all, both have
fast gameplay. Fights can end in seconds. You need good reflexes. You need to be paranoid and think things through. Both have an excellent competitive scene. What do games like GW2 lack in their PvP? Movement and speed. LoL has that, so does CoH.
The only big difference I can think of is skill shots that take aiming, but that's not too far from timing your attacks with teammates for burst damage. Both include timing.
The LoL meta game is essentially the same as the old PvP. A lot of CoH PvPers have walked into LoL and risen through the ranking system fast.
I think the execution of CoH PvP was lacking, but the PvP itself wasn't the problem.
The problem?
-Gated behind 50 levels of PvE per character
-Subscription based
-Never advertised as a PvP game
-Some balance problems
-Lack of objectives/incentive
As someone stated earlier, the Korean video of CoH seemed like a bait and switch. That's definitely not the game I played.
While it can be argued that the popularity of Super Heroes isn't as high in Asia, there's no doubt we had something they would have loved (Our PvP system).
(Last note: PvP and PvE powers worked relatively the same until i13. Definitely at 2006)