Overwatch 1 (the initial release) was supposed to be the "start" of the game. There were supposed to be massive updates (which TF2 had set a standard for) - new modes, new heroes, new events, single player content, story content videos, constant patching/updates and almost none of that happened to this day. It was a $40 game (with $60 versions) that also had lootboxes and FOMO.
I can't even put into words how jarring their idea of creating new content (maps, pve modes) etc for events only, and removing them soon afterwards was to someone really new to this game-as-service live content delivery system. That new content was a three week FOMO at best with playercount in freefall after each event as the game became "launch edition + dumb balance changes" during intermittent content droughts. Earlier comp seasons had distinct metas, vibes, and definitely stood out in my memory. The run from around the end of 2 to 6 were definitely the game's peak, so that puts most of the glory days firmly at 2017. At some point theh shortened a season to "barely 2 months" and I've never seen a convincing argument defending that. It meant more casual/fairweather players would need to do placements very often, getting nearly identical scores as how the MMR system worked. A waste of time for the very fodder which makes placements important as you need raw numbers to make a shiny badge next to your profile to mean anything.
I didn't think competitive was ever as memorable until the first season of OW2 comp as lots of new blood both talented and scrubby and maps people didn't know 100% meant some crazy PTFO or elimination-only strats could be used.
The fanbase/hatedom of this game either wished it was more MOBAish or more like TF2, and I was never a fan of ASSFAGGOTS with their small town population of different heroes and balance patches that needed to be studied frequently. I was never of the opinion that OW ever needed more than 24 launch heroes, and definitely not an additional character every big patch some people wanted, Blizz couldn't even balance two dozen, let alone the half-dozen that made up the meta at any point.
A lot of the new hero introductions were frustrating, most notably Doomfist or Ball. An exception is Baptiste, I think I only enjoyed him so much as he was a safer bet than Zenyatta during the peak of Ball in comp. As for TF2 some of the comparisons grew tiring as I have lots of nostalgia for Team Fortress's pre-f2p days but like OW that title is a shell of what it used to be.
TL;DR fuck games-as-service.
And fuck the OWL, they couldn't maintain an organic fandom if they dared try, bribing players every minute to idle those streams.
And remember, this was all to promote their stupid OWL e-sports bullshit, that they tried to emulate the NBA/NFL/etc. with "local teams" that after a year all consisted of people exported from Korea. So not only were they hoping to convince nerds who watch e-sports online to buy tickets to watch a local venue for some fucking reason, the local team likely didn't have players local to the country let alone city/area.
Imagine the potential of creating major regional rivalry (based on server location, digital nomads get fucked!) with routine best players offered a contract with the OWL - introduced via word of mouth a healthy 2-3 years into the game's lifespan. The American East-West Coast rivalry, the Scandis vs Meds, all fun potential matches. Other posters' comments about this game being a mess to watch didn't help, but I also didn't enjoy watching a bunch of young koreans with near identical haircuts and typecasted "personalities" duke it out in near mirror matches for a whole season. I basically wanted to see autistic bastion one-tricks test how far a gimmick character (OW1) could be used.
