I am, sadly, not familiar with this game or the ecosystem around it. But I am intrigued by your comments, and I spent a few moments researching from the POV of asking “What are the key elements of popularity?”
What jumped out at me from my search was the view that the commercial Valve corporation puts a lot of dough into funding team esports & prizes in a large eco-system.
We can try to imagine competition for popularity with some new, not created game that also supports team play, mods, skill development, with comparable levels of esports support. Which features would be decisive for advantage or disadvantage in that hypothetical competition?