Mortal kombat 9 is good option it doesnt have hard execution and there is alot weak/ inexperienced players online that are easy to beat with less than month of training.Movelists arent too long. But I recommand Soul calibur V its beginner friendly most of characters dont have hard inputs and combos arent long or hard to remember (just make sure he dont chose alpha patroklos and he wont be crying over impassible difficulty. Online you can meet some other beginners so beginner arent free win for first 3 months of play. He can easily find many peoples at his level.
Super street fighter 4: Arcade edition have easy to learn system. Events on screen are easy to understand and beginner doesnt meets with many frustrating ,,that hits me always its unbeatable'' situations. Althrough he may get frustrated by hard to penetrate walls of fireballs. Online players at beginners level are hard to catch that may be painfull for him. Execution may be painfull for him if he dont likes qcf's, qcb's, and other circular motions.
Tekken tag tournament 2 is hard for beginner and learning average characters move list takes long. Learning stapple non=CH combos is also some work. Catching beginner online is almost impassible 3 months of training and he will be able to win probably less than 20% of matches. Gargantuan roster makes it hard to learn matchups. Also there are Mishimas of legendary difficulty. This difficulty is maybe exaggerated but not much. This game is very beginner unfriendly when somebody is impatient and wants start to winning online fast.Combos are long and often hard to execute they also are huge part of game it is not unusual when round consists of 2 combos alone. This game is definitely very hardcore and hard to start with but it is doneable.
I recommand you to not introduce tier lists to him they have bad influence on character selection. For beginner it is best to make chose based on who he likes the most sometimes even if his chosen character have hard execution or is generally hard to use.
If he cant decide who is his favorite character than he should take look on ease of use. And if that fails he should seek for another method of determining who to pick. Tier lists are last place to seek for help. He shouldnt know them when making choice. If he dont knows about the keep it in secret. Make sure that he wouldnt make foolish move and base his choice on tier list. If you consider given games disproportion between characters too big you may eventually discretly check if he doesnt picks somebody of lowest tier and maybe convince him to play somebody else.
