When the age of MMORPGs was born there were fewer entities vying for your attention. It was OK to devote time to spend in your activity/hobby of choice. Be that doing Macramé or playing CoH. You knew that you were going to spend time learning and practising and socialising and conquering. Some studies show attention span has decreased by more than 50% in 20 years (within their parameters). Why read the wall of text in a game when you can just click next,next,next,next...
If you want the original CoH experience - read said text, have a clue, learn all powersets (over time). If you don't have the time to immerse yourself in this fantasy world it's important to have a time sink in which you can commit. Be that in real life or in a complete fantasy.
Is it harder, likely not. Is sharing your attention more difficult - without a doubt YES.