I have never played city of heroes, but I can give you an idea of how it measures up to WoW and Swtor. It's a very casual game, it's not like WoW where you spend 7 days of total gametime to hit level cap then spend weeks gearing up. My step-brother hit cap within 3 days where WoW would take 3 months. Combat is a bit more involved than WoW and Swtor.