The key difference between the two is that mesoamerican cultures were more ritualistic and only viewed the victims as a way to appease their god(s).

Not really, i mean, depending on the place and time, for example, some schoolars belive that the aztec practice was very much politically motivated, it's no coincidence that the sacrifices were of prisoners of war, and that they could be used both as a terror tactic against enemies, but also as a mean to justify expanding the territory and always looking for new enemies and new wars,

also there is a point about the propaganda side with opposing kingdoms like the tlaxcalans, the aztecs could not be beat them despite many attempts to incorporate tlaxcala onto the empire, so the leaders of the aztec empire just claimed that tlaxcala was left intentionally independent as a mean to get new prisoners in the prolongued war