While I will take your word that crawl gets good later in the game, I've always found it to be really monotonous to start, so I never got into it, and have never played it long enough to see past the first level or two.
Nethack was intriguing and really funny right from the start, so I got really into playing it, and the sense of humor is really important to me.
I will have to give crawl another serious look, because at first it seems really mechanical. Pretty much like Diablo, but on the console.
Nethack definitely has more going for it in the comedy department. I like good game humor as well, but balance and interesting gameplay are even more important to me. I would encourage you to give Crawl another try, if only so that you can appreciate the quantum mechanics in Nethack that much more.
Nethack was intriguing and really funny right from the start, so I got really into playing it, and the sense of humor is really important to me.
I will have to give crawl another serious look, because at first it seems really mechanical. Pretty much like Diablo, but on the console.