When comparing Letters from Whitechapel vs Secret Hitler, the Slant community recommends Secret Hitler for most people. In the question“What are the best boardgames that feature bluffing?” Secret Hitler is ranked 4th while Letters from Whitechapel is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Secret Hitler is:
To win Secret Hitler players have to be able to play logically and figure out, using logic and the information they have, how the other players are playing. At the same time, there's a good amount of lying and deception going on, and that social aspect of figuring out who's not being honest meshes well with the logic reasoning. There's also an element of randomness coming from the Laws cards that takes the difficulty of the game up a notch.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Avoids advantage to any player
A lot of co-op games have a problem with one player getting an advantage, this is called an alpha player. Letters from Whitechapel avoids this issue by rotating the Head of Investigation (a player who leads the rest of his co-op partners) each round, this way avoiding one player who has too much control of the game for too long.
Pro Satisfying asynchronous play
Many games try to do asynchronous gameplay but often do not get it right. Luckily Letters for Whitechapel nailed the gameplay with a well balanced role of Jack the Ripper, who often only narrowly escapes the police, which gives a feeling of tension to the one player who could have an advantage if not balanced correctly.
Pro Good combination of logic and social deduction, with a pinch of randomness
To win Secret Hitler players have to be able to play logically and figure out, using logic and the information they have, how the other players are playing. At the same time, there's a good amount of lying and deception going on, and that social aspect of figuring out who's not being honest meshes well with the logic reasoning. There's also an element of randomness coming from the Laws cards that takes the difficulty of the game up a notch.
Pro Clever and interesting take on historical events
This is an historical themed game, and one that took a very smart and creative approach to the historical events it portrays: Hitler's rise to power. Even if, admittedly, the setting is simplistic when compared to true history, most will still learn something from the game or at least feel compelled to do some reading on the subject.
Cons
Con Slow beginning
The beginning of the game is the poorest part as it is slow to setup and can be confusing, especially to new players.
Con The information distribution between the two teams could be more balanced
The way the game is built, while the Liberals have lots of information to figure out and deduce, the Fascists have access to almost all of it. It is true that, in the "hidden identity" family of games, the general setting is an informed minority VS an uninformed majority, but other games usually integrate something that's hidden from the informed minority, like a one-player team that wins alone or a vigilante that kills bad guys. Something like this is strangely missing from the game.