Altair

Maybe my take on this is a bit colored - I was living in Cleveland when the Avengers' New York scenes were filming there. Then I'd walk past all the decrepit Cleveland buildings on my way to university classes and think "Man, we're really doing a great job rebuilding from that Skrull Chituari invasion! Lookin' good, everybody!" 
 
Silly as it is, it gave a really strong feeling for what it's like when crap like that goes on in a city. Ordinary people? RUN RUN RUN and then live among the rebuilding scaffolds.
 
I'm pretty much with Bigdamnhero here - give people a chance to rescue civilians, because these are heroes, man. That's what they do.
 
Another fun thing from the brawl - my character got knocked into a storefront, which we'd written "Comic Shop" on. Clearing broken glass out of his hair, he suggested the guy behind the counter leave, which was met with "Are you kidding? This is the best day of my life!" 
 
...
 
At which point, you know, we tried to both protect, and put on a show for the dude.

I have uploaded a cut and paste version.  Could not find any of the physical ones to scan.  I have a box of the scutters somewhere unless my wife has been motivated to "tidy up" my gaming stuff.  :-)
 
Link here

As far as HERO v. something else, it really depends on the feel of the game you want to run, moreso than broad-stroke genre. 
 
"Fantasy" doesn't really communicate anything. Your standard Forgotten Realms-ish story can be done with D&D 3, 4, 5, Pathfinder, Fate, Savage Worlds, Imagine, Anima, Feng Shui, Cypher System, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Burning Whel or yes, HERO. 
 
And those will all feel very different. And that is very, very good! 
 
I am in no way a proponent of the "one system to rule them all" approach. SW has a very particular feel to its combat - fast, and frenetic, very pulp. If that's what I want - something like the excellent comic Skullkickers, then yes. Savage Worlds. Fate has its own little rhythm, its resolution has a pretty unique feel, and has a lot of shared narrative control between players and GM. D&D does what it does - I'm not super thrilled with it, but sometimes that's what you want.
 
HERO is what I would consider if I was really looking for distinction between characters, and wanted... whatever HERO combat feels like. Because right now, I still don't know, and I'm a big proponent of feel. 
 
But if I were to try to run/play every game in the same system - even if I really like that system - then I would be robbing myself of a wealth of opportunities, and severely diminishing my enjoyment of the hobby. It's worth noting, that this is not an attack on people who want to do this! If you have something that works for you, and works for the type(s) of game you want to run, then awesome! You're awesome, everything is awesome.
 
But it is hardly unsurprising to me that not everybody feels that way. I don't feel that way. I'm big on systems as toolkits - I use different tools for different situations. I'm super enamored with HERO, largely because it seems like a strong candidate for the high-granularity corner of my toolkit. This is why I'm trying to figure out what HERO is like, what it's good at. 
 

Yeah, sort of.  It was exclusively a weird west game for quite a while but you're right they have been careful about not adding too much complexity.  Of course, that's a drawback too; it can't do some things very well.

In Savage Worlds' defense, it's been around for 12+ years at this point, and they've been pretty good about avoiding complexity-creep. They recognize that's their main selling point.

I'm running a street level game set in the Bay Area right now:
 
One of the heroes is a big strong guy (25ST) in a red bull costume with big horns. His moniker is the bull.
 
This week he charged a badguy and hit him so hard that he carried him out onto a balcony and sent him over the edge.
 
Midnight, one of the other heroes, was outside, saw this and said:
 
"huh! red bull gives you wings"

Pretty much this. 
 
HERO can be pretty daunting, but from what I can gather, it's much more internally consistent than say, D20, which makes no sense. You learn it, because it's there, but D&D is actually a pretty terrible first roleplaying game from a mechanics standpoint. HERO's actually not that complicated, but its content isn't always elegantly communicated. 
 
That's not a criticism of DOJ, which is 3 people as I recall, but an observation. Companies like Fantasy Flight and WoTC have departments dedicated to visual communication; of course they're good at this.

I think a very stripped down "players handbook" type of work for each genre - Fantasy Hero 101, Champions 101, etc would do well. In fact, each book could break a few of the standard Hero rules by gently nudging people into the system using templates as "classes" and blocks of advancement in templates as "levels" with information on customization.  You want to play Champions?  Here's your level 1 Martial Artist.  You can level up your Mentalist with these groups of powers per block of xps.  A super basic stripped down combat presentation would also help, along with some tips on playing the game to its fullest.  Equipment and introduction to the game could take up the rest of the book, with lots of art and simple, crayola-color styling.  Even put some cards in the bundle so younger and less-experienced RPG player types get that multimedia experience (bundling an app would help too if someone had that expertise).
 
The idea would not be to make a bonehead version of Hero, but to make a super basic tutorial introduction type of book.  Then players could ease into the game from other systems and computer games in a more comfortable fashion and then as they are used to it, get the real rules under their belt.  Sort of like the Player's Handbook then the various class guides for D20.

I think the concept of the tutorial game is underutilized. There's a non-cynical answer to why video game tutorials have taken root, and it's that learning-by-doing is engaging. (I can get a bit tangent-y on this - my late academic mentor was big on researching video games - I will go on all day if not stopped.)
 
The new Star Wars game, by Fantasy Flight, Edge of the Empire? I picked up its beginners' box when that first hit market (it came with the funky dice) and wow was I impressed. It did a great job of introducing concepts in a fun, organic way, and teaching the mechanics of the game through play. I thought it was freaking fantastic. And it introduced concepts in a way that helped them stick.
 
In fact, I feel like every game could use such a product. If my current work goes well enough, I might try my hand at writing some, see if people like them.
 
But yeah, the point is that a lot of people really dig something different in the user interface of the game. One of my friends never puts anything down in shorthand - the numbers just live in his head, and it messes him up if he deals with the results and not the formulas. I tend to work in the opposite fashion.

This is a great thread, thanks for sharing all of you.
 
I appreciate reading this as a reborn Hero gamer.

...Use sparingly. If the players get the idea that no matter how much ass they kick, you're going to just "cheat" and throw something heavier at them, the conclusion they're likely to draw is "Wow, this guy is a dick!" and find a new GM.  
To a point, yes. Letting the players know they can earn as many (or more) XP by avoiding a fight is great - and is something that D&D/Pathfinder-school gamers may need to be reminded of. But giving out 0 XP because the players didn't do things the way you wanted them to? I'd be looking for another GM.  
Sorry to be so blunt; maybe that's not what you meant. But this comes across as exactly the sort of heavy-handed, adversarial "It's MY game and the players are my chess pieces" style of GMing that I freakin HATE. Roleplaying is supposed to be a collaborate experience.