Resource allocation continues to be a challenging issue in communication networks and its complexity is continuously increasing with the densification of the networks. Resource allocation strategies are numerous and varied, and the goal is to improve any or a number of targets, such as spectral and energy efficiency and overall throughput, among others. In this paper, selected algorithms for resource allocation in wireless communication networks are analyzed and simulations are executed to compare and highlight the importance of the way the resource algorithms are implemented to achieve efficient usage of the available spectrum. In addition, the performance of selected algorithms is evaluated in a multi-cell heterogeneous network and compared to eICIC, a widely-used interference mitigation technique used by communication networks. The results suggest that there is no single algorithm that visibly outperforms other candidates in terms of all performance criteria. Instead, their efficiency is always a consequence of a strategic choice of goals, and the targeted parameters are optimized at a price. Thus, the development and implementation of resource allocation algorithms must follow concrete usage scenarios and needs of the network and depend heavily on network performance requirements and parameters criteria.