To get an idea about what chess variants people like to play, one can look
into statistics of running games at BrainKing.com
(http://brainking.com/en/Statistics?p=2):
3. Chess 3128
11. Dice Chess 1325
12. Dice Chess 10x10 1316
26. Loop Chess 385
27. Japanese Chess 369
44. Massacre Chess 207
45. Chinese Chess 207
46. Dark Chess 202
52. Anti Chess 163
57. Atomic Chess 151
59. Embassy Chess 149
61. Ice Age Chess 145
64. Horde Chess 139
66. Ambiguous Chess 132
67. Grand Chess 132
70. Fischer Random Chess 125
74. Fortress Chess 112
76. Amazon Chess 109
78. Los Alamos Chess 109
87. Extinction Chess 95
89. Behemoth Chess 95
90. Three Checks Chess 94
91. Capablanca Random Chess 91
92. Corner Chess 89
93. Janus Chess 88
94. Racing Kings 87
97. Minishogi 83
99. Cylinder Chess 82
100. Recycle Chess 82
102. Crazy Screen Chess 77
106. Screen Chess 70
107. Knight Relay Chess 68
110. Legan Chess 66
116. Knightmate Chess 59
122. Berolina Chess 54
123. Cheshire Cat Chess 53
126. Maharajah Chess 44
Unfortunately statistics for finished games is not easily available at this
site. Still one can visit pages for particular variants and see the number
of total finished games, e.g. for 'Dice Chess':
Statistics of won games
white 33290 (51.71 %)
black 31028 (48.19 %)
Draws 60 (0.09 %)
No suprise, that such great games as 'Loop Chess' and 'Japanese Chess'
at the top of the list. However, it is amazing to see 'Dice Chess' as a
second most popular chess variant (after chess itself)!