This was my MOBA of choice for the longest time. I've always enjoyed mythology, so getting to play as some of the most well-known figures in historic folklore drew me in! As with any online multiplayer game, the experience can be mixed. You can have great games one day with solid teammates, and then a bunch of horrible games with people who want to troll or throw because something didn't go their way.

Smite offers a few different options depending on how sweaty you want to get: Arena is good for beginners and allows you to get familiar with characters' abilities without too much strategy, Joust is a step up that includes one lane and a small jungle to get you comfortable with the typical MOBA experience, and then there's Conquest, the full on, 5v5 mode with three lanes, a massive jungle, and the big push towards the opposing base.

Perhaps the major thing that sets this apart from other games in the genre is that you directly control and aim with your character in 3rd-person view, as opposed to the usual isometric perspective in games like Defense of the Ancients or League of Legends.

I haven't played this in years now, so the meta has most certainly passed me by at this point, but it's a fun game with a lot of unique characters and abilities. But, you may want to wait for the release of Smite 2 to try it out, which is just around the corner!

Played this game since the early beta, and clocked in about 2000 hours of playtime afterwards.
I discovered that MOBAs aren't good for you. When you lose, you feel miserable, but when you win, you don't even feel happy. It's a constant loop of being flamed by teammates, fighting unfun characters feeling hopeless when your team is losing but you are doing fine.
Despite this, I did have a fun time early on. Played it a ton with friends and this game does have fun characters to play. Smite feels very satisfying to play, and I'd be interested in seeing this game's engine and mechanics applied to something else, like a MMO.

The developers of this game suck. Characters in this game are gods from mytholgy, like Zeus, Thor, Ares, Loki, Anubis, etc. Yet they take creative liberty to alter their lore to fit the Smite theme, which has led them to receive negative feedback.
Same goes for skins: some of the gods are depicted like whores, because that makes players actually buy the game, while the god has nothing to do with being about sex at all.
They're also very quick to hop on trends. Hearthstone got popular? Make a smite-themed hearthstone clone. Overwatch got popular? Make Paladins and pretend it was in development for years (it wasn't.).
The devs feel very scummy.