I get the impression that people often use the term 'like chess' in a similar way that older people will refer to all video games as 'Nintendo', like for example in certain sports you'll sometimes here the phrase 'the coaches are playing a chess match' or something like that. Which I hope is the case here people are talking about here, because I felt this way towards Starcraft 2 so never mind MOBA games, but to actually make a direct comparison is kind of insulting to chess.
Basically what it comes down to is that chess is essentially pure strategy. The game itself is so simply that a 5 (or younger) year old can learn it, yet the strategy is so complex that you can spend a life time and never master it. While competitive games like Starcraft are termed 'real time strategy' I find the 'strategy' use can often be pretty light, at least in comparison to chess. Now stay with me here for a second, I don't mean to belittle Starcraft, it's just as a video game there's so much going on. You have you're macro play, which is essentially textbook knowledge and practice through repetition, and micro play, which is more skill/precision & twitch reflexes. If you're say a tier higher in these two aspects than you're opponent, then it doesn't matter they're a 12 year old kid or a legitimate chess grandmaster 9 times out of 10 (or whatever) you're going to win. Strategy of course does come into play when you have two equal players in this regard, which you will at the pro league level, but still I consider the level of strategy to be more on par with poker. So I basically see pro Starcraft players as a combination of Tetris masters and poker all stars, but not chess grand masters. I can't really comment on MOBA players here because I've barely played them, and my bias leans towards the negative side, but I'd think they're on a lesser scale than the Starcraft pro's.
But regardless I'm just ranting here because this has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, it's not that series that I can't love the comic here!