Dota 2 Review

Starting a new genre of games is normally a worrying idea for most people. Although, common knowledge exists throughout these games, making it easier for newcomers to pick up and learn. Most open-world games have a detailed tutorial to get the player familiar with the controls and almost every fighting game as a tutorial mode where you can practice combos and learn which character you are best with. Dota 2 is similar, yet completely opposite at the same time. After first starting the game, you will be prompted to start the tutorial mode. Which in all honesty, is nothing like a public game at all. It teaches the player basic movement, how to buy items, use abilities, and last hit. All of which sound important, but isn’t helpful if you can’t do it in a real game. Following the tutorial, you have three options, find a public game, a ranked game, or a bot match. For a new player these may be offsetting, but playing bot matches with novice or easy bots is the most efficient way to learn how to play.

The premise of Dota 2 is somewhat simple. There are two factions, the Radiant and the Dire, each with five heroes who’s job is to protect their Ancient from being destroyed. Once loaded into a game, you will have the choice to play 1 out of over 100 heroes, make sure you pick will since you will be stuck with them for about 40 minutes. Basic early parts of the game are called the “Laning Phase” where two people will go to the top lane, two to the bottom, and one middle. Every 30 seconds your “creeps” will spawn and fight the enemy creeps. In order to purchase new items you will need gold, to get gold you either need to kill an enemy hero, destroy a tower, or last hit a creep. Last hitting is essentially getting the killing blow on a creep. As the game progresses you will purchase items which will make your hero stronger, destroy towers, and kill enemy heroes. The winning team is the one who destroys the enemy Ancient.

Did all of that make sense? Probably not. The learning curve in Dota 2 is high, and could potentially make newcommers put off playing it. But like everything else, practice makes perfect. Starting off with a Bot match will get the player ready for what real games are like. And as they get better, they can always raise the difficulty until the are ready for a public match. I would highly advise waiting until you are ready to play publicly, or have a friend or two willing to play with you in your first game. To be completely honest, you may not do as good as you thought you would. When finding your public game there is two major things to be wary of, and which are also Dota’s main flaws. Matchmaking and community. Some may call it horrendous, but the matchmaking in Dota is poor and sometimes wonder why it happens. Before starting you have the option to choose what server you wish to play on. More often then not you will choose a US server (or whatever part of the world you are from), and end up playing with people that speak a different language then you. Not being able to communicate is a severe detriment in Dota, and could easy mean losing the game early. Although not the developers fault, Dota has a harsh community, which again can throw new players off from playing. My advice is to mute any player who you feel are ruining the game for you. This will not only make it less stressful, but overall a better experience. On a scale from 1-10 on a frustration scale, I will give Dota a flat 5. The games where it is difficult to communicate with your team or are just having a bad game a truly unsatisfying. But, winning or even having an intense game will make it even more enjoyable.

Now, don’t give up on Dota 2 just yet. Those may be the only faults that the entire game has. There will obviously be some balancing issues, the the game is updated regularly to keep each hero as balanced as possible. Once you get passed the beginning stages of Dota and started playing public games, it is loads of fun. Each game lasting about 40 minutes or so and you will end up gaining hours pretty quickly. With a nice polished art style to keep it interesting, and every game being different, the replay value is intense. Dota can last from 1 hour to easily 1000 hours, depending on how much a person likes it. What more can you ask from a free to play game? No microtransactions? Because Dota has none of those either. The only things that you are able to buy are aesthetic items, which are not mandatory at all. And with every hero unlocked from the beginning, there is a lot to do in Dota. There are currently 108 playable heroes (still more to be added), let’s just say that every game of Dota will last 40 minutes. 108 heroes x 40 minutes per game = 4,320 minutes / 60 minutes per hour = 72 hours to play as every hero in the game. Of course you play the same hero more then once, but a minimum of 72 hours to try every hero is an insane amount of time to play a free to play game.

Dota 2 is a free to play games which can easily add 100+ game time to your Steam library. Although it may have poor matchmaking, and a rather harsh community. It is rather easy to ignore them by either muting them, or just playing with a party of friends. The learning curve is high, but leads to a high reward with some intense matches with friends, and an large variety of heroes, item builds and play styles. The game is frequently updated to keep every hero balanced and keep the game fair. Dota 2 receives a 9/10 with slight faults in matchmaking but excelling in every other aspect.