About a month ago DotA 2 was finally released as a final version (ie. no longer Beta). I made sure to sign up for it as soon as I found out on Steam. After less than a day of waiting I got my pass and wow, this is an amazing game. Dota 2 is my fist MOBA (multiplayer online batlle arena) game, which for those that don't know is a genre of games that began with the original DotA and now include the popular League of Legends as well as others like HoN.
Basically the idea behind a MOBA is seemingly simple but the game itself gets very complex and technical. You have an even map with 2 starting points, one for each team, as well as 3 lanes where teams must clear in order to get to the other team's base. Each lane has 3 sets of towers that must be destroyed by the opposing team with the help of "creeps", which are foot soldiers that help the teams out. A team consists of 5 players and the objective as I mentioned is to destroy the other team's Ancient.
If both teams just sit and do nothing, waves of creeps will just fight each other and the game will probably be stagnantly stopped forever. However, with help from each of the 5 heroes, creeps push lanes towards the enemy towers until they can start damaging the tower. Heroes all start at level 1 with a small amount of gold. From there players gain experience through being close to the dying enemy units, and gold is obtained by delivering last hits on enemy units. This is an important aspect of the game since only one player can last hit. Players that keep getting last hits (LH) will accumulate gold faster than his team mates, and if you are more efficient than your opponent, you will also gain more than him/her. The interesting bit of the game is the variety of strategies available to move through the enemy's lanes. The most common is the use of 2 heroes on each side lane and one hero in the middle lane. This allows the middle lane hero to gather gold and experience faster than the side lanes, since he does not have to share XP or gold with anyone (although gold is usually not shared). Also the mid lane is the safest lane since towers are closer together, offering more protection from enemy attacks. Side lanes will often consist of a carry and a support, which are some of the different roles heroes can have. This is a lot like in sports where you have a football striker for instance, whose role is to score goals and pressure the opposition offensively. You have defenders that keep the ball away from their own goal. The carry is the player that will have to become the strongest of their team because they will be the ones doing most of the pushing and killing towards the end of the game, they "carry" the team at the end. Support are there to assist the carry in harassing the other team and helping him farm for gold and XP as much as possible. There are other roles that are a bit more complex as well, such as roamers/gankers which are heroes that tend to be more mobile offering more map awareness to his team mates as well as help in killing enemy heroes when opportunities arise. There are initiators, which tend to be heroes good at starting fights with abilities that put the enemy in positions where they have to react, usually leading to combat. You also have pushers, which are heroes that are specialized in killing enemy creeps as well as towers, allowing the team to move through the enemy's lane quickly when it is uncontested. You can also have nukers, which are heroes that are able to do a lot of AoE (Area of effect) damage, and can be great for team fights, farming or lane pushing in some cases.
Aside from the game itself, Dota 2 has a great and growing community. Just last week was the International, which is basically DotA 2 world cup, and it was such a great event to watch. This was the first time I've watched an eSport event, and I must say it was very exciting. Really, just as exciting as a good football or hockey game. The coverage was great, exciting and professional. I urge anyone interested in video games to check these games out, they will surprise you in how thrilling it can actually be to watch people play video games.
I'm really only touching the surface of this game with this post, but I think the main message I want to convey is that DotA 2 is a great fun game for anyone interested in a deep strategic game that could potentially consume a lot of your free time. I'll give this game a 9.5/10.
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