BW to watch, SC2 to play. SC2 is way ahead of BW considering the game longevity. It takes years (and one extension) for BW to actually becomes what it is : the perfect balanced RTS game with high level players providing the fans maximum pleasure. SC2 is already showing us some nice battles, and the best is still to come. Have faith my friends !
I think BW is a better game in almost every respect.
But I will tell you what gives me hope for SC2 as a E-Sport.
It does seem to have a very dynamic skill ceiling... there are so many layers of even "great" players. I won't go into recent Invitationals that have shown this, but even from my play, I know I'm mid Diamond- but have a friend who is #1 Diamond. He is many fold better than I am. He entered a ladder game to get into a TL tourny, and got owned. They guy who beat him successively got owned... on up to players like iNcontrol and Orb, who are very good will lose usually to players like Cauthon Luck and TLO. Then you have your White-rA, Dimaga, IdrA and NonY types... and we have all seen what some Koreans can occasionally do above that.
Long story short, this bodes VERY well for this game as a competitive sport. Differences in skill seem to be very clear and minimally dependent on race.
Lets see, I've been playing BW all week, and I haven't played SC2 in almost 3 weeks. Definitely SC:BW. I can't quite put my finger on it, but SC2 isn't nearly as satisfying to play as SC:BW. I have a feeling I will watch more SC2 than play it. But I'll be watching and playing BW.
yes I agree, its too early for sc2 to compete with the king of all games, I'm sure sc2 will never replace sc, so i guess the best possible outcome is that there'll be two games at a time, I love SC!!!!
I'm playing quite a bit of SC2 and enjoying the hell out of it, but easy vote for BW. I can think of multiple single days I spent on BW that are more awesome than all the time I've spent on SC2. Both are awesome, though, for me.
I can't pick either of them, Starcraft 2 looks very promising in terms of fun play and casual gaming (i've played several hundreds of coop vs comp games with friends in SC1) but Brood war is much better in terms of competative play. You just can't outshine something as perfect as Brood War.