If a round is 60-90 minutes, it would seriously suck to lose a few times in a row (exp wise).
For gold it wouldn't be such a problem, as no upkeep = 50 gold/minute -> 3000 gold an hour. Not much, but at least you didn't lose anything.
Other than that, if I'm level 30, I would still play this, as it looks like it could be epic fun.