Oof. I thought maybe you might be right about those other two comics you mentioned. I gave them both a chance and, nope, I found them both cliched and boring af. I mean maybe the ending of this particular story is sh!tty but if we're just taking into account the chapters that have been posted of each on here at least the main character isn't one dimensional in this story like the other two MCs are, where one has a past that doesn't fit with his personality and the other keeps following a single archetype that is so overused in these kinds of stories. At least this MC is a mix of archetypes.
Well... it is kinsa slow-paced... and this mc is more like a brains over brawns guy... His enemy's fame and support is so big that even if he magically got op as hell he would have to fight a lot of strong people before getting to him and end up as humanity's enemy even if he succeeded.. ╮( ̄▽ ̄)╭
I dropped both you mentioned cuz fff was making me too angry on mc's behalf (the bad side of being an empath) and SL got me bored... maybe his opness or his lack of a clear objective... idk... at some point I felt the mc becoming kinda flat... ┑( ̄Д  ̄)┍
Guess I'm more into the revenge focused or the get involved in others sheet while trying to survive mc's... ( ̄∇ ̄")
Solo leveling is popular because of: the art, the opness like u said (which many ppl love), and teen simping on MC. The story itself is pretty average, whoever reads the novel first will get a pretty normal reaction, i personally like SL because of the art more than anything else and if the art wasn't that good i'd just say it's average not gonna lie, yes his badass fights are pretty satisfying but since am a novel reader i guarantee u, without the manhua the novel wouldn't be that popular neither. in terms of story quality there are way better.
I came to chapter 19 and decided that nothing interesting was happening. the character is tried to be set up like the edgy alone guy that doesn’t care about anyone but it’s not as interesting as fff-class trash hero or solo leveling. Yeah i guess he is trying to get revenge but it didn’t actually show the heart breaking past he had for the severity of his supposed hatred so idk he just seems like air to me. Simply nothing. So yeah should I continue? Does it get better?