User blog comment:Krufix/Dota2 - Is it REALLY so much harder than LoL?/@comment-5001455-20130123222355

Dota has always been balanced around the "fight fire with fire" principle of having overpowered mechanics across the board. Though the game technically has crazy mechanics compared to LoL (honestly speaking, a "crazy" mechanic in LoL is just a nerfed version of something you would find in Dota), Dota is definitely more challenging as a result because it heavily punishes carelessness.

For instance, In LoL, a lot of crowd control effects in the game are reduced to short durations and in most cases are just AoE slows. Dota, on the other hand, throws out crazier crowd control effects that last longer and make you extra wary.

Honestly, playing Dota for so many years has made me think of a lot of bad stuff in LoL as "whatever" because I have been hit by worse. You have a lot more room for error in LoL compared to Dota.