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I admit it. I'm a total sucker for a good challenge. You wouldn't believe how happy I was when I found out that the Humble Indie Bundle V started including Super Meat Boy. (I had already purchased the bundle, so finding out that I now owned one of the smoothest and most challenging platformers was amazing, especially because that day was horrible in many other ways.) After sinking a few hours into the game I'm proceeding along at an ever slowing pace and it brings me to an interesting realization.
No matter how hard a single-player game is, the inevitable truth is that it ends.
SC2 has brought something I've really never experienced into my life. The prospect of an almost never-ending challenge. Oh I had this for a time when I used to play Tennis frequently in high school. And more recently as a fencer in college. But in both of those cases I knew that physical limitations put a severe cap on how much I could accomplish.
But SC2 isn't quite like that. Whenever I play I know there's tiny little things I could do to improve and that I don't need to have the fingers of an expert pianist to do it. It's exhilarating really. In many ways you could say it's like a martial art for the mind. The player, constantly searching for perfection in his play, faces off against his opponent in a duel of the mind.
I know this is all very far from what most people define as fun. In fact I probably wouldn't like it that much if I had a teacher glaring over my shoulder as I played and SC2 styled tests that determined my future. But somehow, the detachment from the mechanisms that school provides in my grad program makes SC2 all the more interesting for me.
That's all ignoring the fact that other elements of SC2 are fun and interesting too. No denying the fact that it's really got it in many other departments. But unlike so many other games I play (with the possible exception of Reach), I keep coming back to SC2. I wonder if this element of challenge in multiplayer might not be the reason why.
So what do you guys think? What keeps bringing you back?
  
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I agree with what you said, the challenge aspect of starcraft is very intriguing, but there are other things that keep me coming back to. One of them is watching an awesome pro game (Most recently DRG vs. Alicia) and telling myself, "I wanna do that!" and immediately jumping into the game and attempt to be as good as them. That feeling when you realize how your skill compares to theirs is both hilarious and fun at the same time, if you're lighthearted about it.
The second main reason I keep coming back is that starcraft is a practically limitless game. There are nine matchups to play (from a single point of view) and learning one completely is extremely difficult. Even for the best people at this game, it is only practical to learn three. Even within individual matchups, there are hundreds of builds and strategies that are simply waiting to be discovered.
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I definitely agree. I love challenging games, and SC2 will remain a challenge forever, no matter how good you become. Mind you, so will Chess, Go, Brood War, Age of Empires, Quake Live, Street Fighter, League of Legends, DOTA, or basically any good competitive game, so obviously SC2 has to have more going for it than just that to make it something I want to keep playing for a long time. Fortunately, it's also very fun and has a lot of great qualities I look for in a competitive game.
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What keeps me coming back is the limitless potential to optimize. And no matter how much you optimize, someone can optimize against you. We have "standard" play, but no matter what, if you know what standard your opponent prefers, you can find a weakness and optimize it, then optimize based on what you now it you fail
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Uoeahtns: Good point. Watching those games does give you ideas and fun things to try. Isuppose most of the other games I've played that are competitive don't have quite as vibrant a pro scene. (Except for LoL and DOTA and the Fighters, but...well maybe it just comes down to liking SC2 in particular.)
jpditri: The optimization is a neat thing too. That's for sure.
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EPT
