I've never played regular Werewolf, unless you are referring to what I know of as the informal party game Mafia (several nights, one killer, several townspeople, maybe one or two additional roles who get special abilities).
In that case, yes much better:
- Everyone is involved start to finish, and a free phone app serves as the emcee.
- People receive cards with (usually) unique roles that furnish them some special information in their own way. I think some Mafia variants have minor special roles, but the makers of ONUW really did a good job thinking of creative ones.
- Many roles involve moving cards around at night, so when you wake up you usually don't know for sure whether you're still the role you thought you were, or whether a card you saw at night is still where it was when you saw it.
We play this all the time, but it's a bit ugly for people who get out on the first night.
I talk trash most of the time so some people just kill me on the first round because they want their peace :D