ive played wc3 off and on for 10 years. It was the best game ever for a time, when it was really active.
Now the servers are just filled with hackers. so for someone starting off, it's not very fun. it'd be fun to find someone to practice vs someone your own skill lvl who doesnt hack, but that'd be hard to find. also ignore all posts about imbalance, since skill > imbalance, until you're at pro level, which isn't worth discussion. there's like 1 pro league anyways going on now
If you want a hack free, delay free, noob free server, play on w3arena. but that means youll be playing vs euro tryhards.
sc2 has much better graphics, much more people, meaning you'll always find a game (even in WoL which is what i play). they constantly updating it, working on expansions, ppl streaming it, huge tourneys with huge $ with all koreans, etc. its all the hype. no one knows what wc3 is really
I play protoss in sc2 cuz u can warp in units instantly. Also I cannon rush almost every game. I got rank 2 diamond, like maybe 1 game away from masters, but didnt want to go on a loss streak and didnt want to rage anymore so now im just collecting bonus pool.
I still find wc3 way more fun, but i'm taking a break from rts because it can get frustrating. basically in both games, if you make one little mistake it can cost you the game (i like to blame my loss on that mistake). it depends on your opponent tho. Like someone else said, wc3 is more micro, sc2 is more macro. but both are factors.
As far as downtime goes, it's like either you're creeping the map in wc3 which may sorta get boring, or in sc2 you're just building and teching while sitting in your base, which is also boring (I mean unless you're terran and dropping marines all over your opponent's face). I mean its fun for someone starting out cuz u dont know whats going on really but over time i think i've out-done my RTS joy cuz it gets too frustrating. but i still wana eventually get masters
Best race to start off in wc3 w/ would be night elf, since they have moonwells that can instantly heal you, a demon hunter that drains their mana, and literally mass bears and dryads and attack move, like someone sorta said (and get a panda and heal scrolls!). I personally play undead, but like others have said it's really not practical for 1v1 (however the best ud will own me everytime w/ any race). However they are really good in team games. I got rank 1 in 2v2 AT and pretty much stopped playing after that.
If you play either game I recommend using grid hotkey, which assigns your hotkeys to left side of the keyboard. you can download warkeys to do that for you in wc3, and it also comes w/ an item hotkey re-mapper which i use (not really cheating since im quite sure its been allowed in offline tournies, and plus u can hard-remap your keyboard anyways)
gl hf gg let me know if u actually wana get into it, or if someone wants tips.