I just don't, yet they're so similar and Hexen arguably has some better aspects.

I am guessing it is because I didn't play Hexen back in the day and have no nostalgia for it. Would love to hear some gameplay reasons though.

The blast from a shotgun just gets the adrenaline flowing better than an energy bolt.

Hexen does not have such a nice "feel" to its weapons as Doom. In Doom most weapons have a nice satisfying sound effect that really makes you feel powerful. In comparison, the sound effects of the weapons in Hexen are rather unimpressive.
Also, Hexen is a lot more confusing, and feels less focused than Doom.

Because they are actually really different. Try heretic, that's more like doom in a fantasy setting. I also saw Hexen as a 1st person adventure (not lucasartsadventure) where you are dropped in big hub levels with backtracking and in which the main goal was to figure out how the hub worked and finding the right puzzlepieces. The FPS stuff was there as an obstacle but never as a main focus. (Like enemies in banja kazooie)

*Completely personal and I'm trying to recollect fifteen year old impressions

EDIT:

As I just discovered, I also meant Heretic. I think I haven't actually played Hexen. For authenticity sake, I'm leaving the original post as is, even though it says Hexen ...

But:

IIRC, Hexen didn't have the level design in a quality that Doom had. Also, the sound effects of Doom were utterly brilliant. Not only the shotgun, but most of the weapons, the grunts of the monsters, the satisfying sound of the pick-ups, etc. The sound effects of Hexen were rather annoying.

Also, combat was faster and more intense. From what I recall, Hexen had less "hoards of monster". Also, the brilliant "shotgun gameplay" (move, shot, kill, strafe, shot, evade, shot, kill) was gone due to not having a similar weapon. It was more "chipping away" of the enemies health.

The setting of Doom was better and with Episode progressing more diverse. From the techno style of the beginning to the nightmarish looks of Hell it just looked better than the brown in brown of Hexen.

Better monsters. Every monster in Doom was unique and fun to fight and kill. Doom II is a sign of how good the Doom 1 cabaret was because even the added monsters for Doom II felt cheap. The only shitty monster of Doom 1 I can think of is the Spiderdeamon.

And: Shotgun and Chainsaw. Nuff said.

Doom just felt better designed and had more fluent, concerted gameplay. Hexen felt like a fantasy cash in.

Edit: Typo

Because the idea of Hexen is great (First Person Fantasy Action/Adventure/RPG-Lite!), but is let down by several choices made in development. The Hub levels are a confusing mess (I have finished the first hub once, and have tried several times to just play the game), there is a bunch of inter-connectedness between levels in a hub, but not enough feedback when one thing in one level affects another, and the lack of variety in weapons. I love the gameplay, but not the game.

I'd say Heretic is far more similar to DOOM, not HeXen.

Great games, lots of people don't like the puzzle hunting in HeXen but I never had too much trouble with it.

Remember, Its super easy to create your own levels for Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Strife

Doombuilder is piss easy to use:
[url= http://www.doombuilder.com/ ] http://www.doombuilder.com/ [/url]


(For anyone who doesn't like the level design of the game :D)

Doom is just..

Doom is that rare game that only comes out every so often, that no matter what they do they just can't.. improve on it, completely. Everything they do that makes it 'better' also just feels lacking.

Doom had incredible level design.
Incredible sounds (for the time).
Great moments of 'oh fuck!'
A nasty assortment of beasties.
An awesome arsenal (I mean the BFG? Heh, how can you go wrong).

It was simple, it's out dated by todays standards.. but in some regards it still ranks as one of the best FPS of all time, and it really formed the genre.

HeXen was awesome, don't get me wrong. Back in the day, I loved HeXen.. some of the weapons you could get, and the power ups.. it was epic, but.. it really did lack something.

FUCK I MEANT HERETIC.

So did I ;-P

(I was wondering what people meant by "hub levels"....)

Heretic II however, decent game.

Edit:

I think I haven't actually played Hexen. I always thought it was just some added episodes, like "Final Doom" for Doom.

Oww okay, then this is my answer:

Doom hits everything just right so comparing anything that tries to do the same thing in a different setting will turn out negative for the clone. Heretic has great level design (there are probably only a handfull a bad levels including the expansion so that impressive), a fun fantasy theme, great graphics but one major flaw: the weapons aren't really impressive, making the game less fun to play then doom. They sound as if they have no power whatsoever.
O no. Hexen is different. Heretic is what you get when you want to do something different than doom but don't have the guts and/or financial means to actually do something different ;). I think they got more of both after heretic and the result was hexen. If you like that or not, now that's a different question ;)

I myself like more Hexen/Heretic games. There are some item puzzles like flying to a certain place, upgraded version of weapons with another item. Doom is just a plain shooter, a good one though.
And I think atmosphere, especially in Hexen is better.

Edit: And at least first Hexen has 3 character classes.