Mountains of emergent gameplay (if you play at a high enough level), and community led servers with custom game modes via the workshop.
But people still queue up for competitive because the very existence of a 24/7 accessible competitive system with instant post match feedback (read: not going to tournaments) is a huge draw for a lot of people, even if it's at the expense of the community aspect.
Wrong. Don't get me wrong Overwatch is a well done game but there just isn't nearly the level of freedom and community you had with UT2k4 and Q3. The nature of the game itself is so so much more prescriptive. I played OW enough to get some faint shadow of 2000's era gaming (scrims, a regular team, loads of time to dedicate to it) but it's trash compared to the experience of hopping on a clan server.
Overwatch has more mechanics than either of the games you mentioned, if you don't get that then you're not a good enough player to have discovered them, which is fine.
And you failed to comprehend my comment: the player base mostly doesn't want the community part over the immediate feedback of comp.
People don't want clan servers, they want to queue up, win or lose, then queue up again.
After all, nothing stops OW from supporting clans. Unlike say Warzone that needs 40 something people for a private match, OW will let your team play another team with no problem.
But people still overwhelmingly go it alone, because they want that immediate feedback loop of solo queue.
Mountains of emergent gameplay (if you play at a high enough level), and community led servers with custom game modes via the workshop.
But people still queue up for competitive because the very existence of a 24/7 accessible competitive system with instant post match feedback (read: not going to tournaments) is a huge draw for a lot of people, even if it's at the expense of the community aspect.