To be honest - and this is speaking as someone who played the hell out of that game from beta to about two or three years - there were several factors that stopped me playing it:
1) The endgame. Doug the Troll was my first and only level 50 character. It took me several years to reach that because, quite honestly, I did a lot of farting around playing him in character in Atlas Park. And by the time Doug was in his 40's, I was losing interest in the game. So, I'd play it casually once in a blue moon. But once I'd reached level 50, I realized I didn't want to do all the badge hunts, all the same missions, over and over again. The new levels intrigued me, but it was still kind of the same grind, anyway.
Which would have been fine, if I could find a good, fun group to play with. Unfortunately...
2) The groups that I teamed with - from the City of Heroes Livejournal community - were really focused on the game. Not all of them, mind, and none of them were really a bad bunch, but there were a good number of them (or at least the most verbal) who would quote stats/numbers, talk about this enhancement and that enhancement, etc. And I just didn't care. I played it casually and honestly only cared about smashin' stuff and playing Doug in character (basically goofing around). Of course, Doug was a damn good tank and I played a damn good tank, so my goofing around didn't get in the way of missions. But that focus on stats and crap really turned it off for me.
3) Enhancements. They got far too confusing for me. I understood slotting enhancements into powers and all that. But then, the whole crafting bit of the game came out and it just went totally over my head. Worse, it was just not fun for me. I could probably enjoy it more if it were simplified like, say, Ultima Online, where it was "cloth makes clothing, leather makes this", yadda yadda. But this was "Scientifically Advanced Micro So-and-So" and merge it with "Biologically Lab Designed Macro Orgnism Thingamabobo" (paraphrasing). I was all like "Whuh?" And it just wasn't fun. Yet so many people were obsessed with the crafting stuff.
In all honesty, once I hit level 50, I didn't see much else to do with the game. Yeah, I could roll up another character (which I loved doing), but no character had the staying power of sheer enjoyment Doug had. I played him in-character from day one on the Justice server. Even in a full 8-person team with myself being the only one playing in-character. And that was a total hoot for me to get reactions from people where I'd duck around a corner and say "This am look like job for...", come back around the corner with Doug decked out as Super Doug and shout "SUPER DOUG!"
Doug was a pseudo-celebrity on Justice, too. At any time that I logged in, at least half a dozen people would shout "DOUG!"
Gah. Sorry, I didn't mean to rant on this much. But yeah, the fact that no other character that I played (and even tried playing in-character) matched Doug's fun. Sadly, I never really got to play much of City of Villains for the same reasons.
