Hardcore gamer = someone who plays only cinematic grizzed white dude games and/or military fetishizing FPS
Casual gamer = anyone that is not a 15-25 yo male, and/or plays anything outside of the previously mentioned games, especially if those games are colorful.
So basically the gaming community is full of gatekeeping, misogyny, toxic masculinity and general chuddery. They make sure they're the loudest voice heard when anything about games is talked about, and won't be happy until all games a homogenous stream of bland, hyper-realistic but with a grey filter slog of mindless action with no heart or soul. And don't you dare force them to read any dialogue or story.
LoL says "here's a game and some pieces tailor-made to play it" while DotA says "here's some toys and a sandbox, it's out of my hands now" and I think about that every day
hell yeah, same
honestly I think dota's way should be the way for fun+challenging games in general