too many altcoins on the market. new projects are coming out like donuts in a bakery. best to do your homework before putting ur money in.

Hype:
twitter users
reddit posts
telegram members
discord members
responsiveness/truthfulness of moderators in these channels
   
Fundamentals:   
Availability of MVP
Team strength (number of experts in the field; linkedin profiles)   
Whitepaper originality/technicality/clarity   
Independent reviews   
Partnerships with corporates/academia   
Use-case strength   
Clarity of roadmap

Others:   
Existing Competition (other coins in the same space? how established are they)   
Regulation Risk (does it have security characteristics?)   
Hardcap (is it asking for too much money for its use case?)
Share of tokens distributed (are the founders/team keeping too much for themselves, escrow?)