A week ago I was notified that I was finally eligible for the DOTA 2 beta. With great joy I accepted the challenge and immediately proceeded to download the 2GB game client on Steam. I signed up for the beta earlier this year and with much patience I was finally allowed into the beta. It was great timing due to the fact that I have grown bored with League of Legends and for some reason Heroes of Newerth just didn't gel well with me - I was in the market for a new MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game and Defense of the Ancients 2 is it!
Upon loading it up I was greeted with a slick user interface that looked both good and felt good. As with all games I tinkered with options, pumped my graphics settings to maximum and not long after that I was on my way to playing my first match.
Since then I've played about 14 games, having invested around 12 hours and so far I'm loving it. It not only looks good, but it runs really well on my rig despite there being some online lag here and there. The online lag is partially due to my slow 384kbps line and the fact that there are no South African server in place just yet. South African players will have to settle with the European server for the time being - it doesn't have terrible lag, but a local server would definitely be appreciated. Hopefully this gets implemented in the near future.
The game has tons of heroes to choose from which players of the original DOTA will immediately recognize. With each beta update they seem to be adding at least one hero (last week it was the Naga Siren). I've only had the chance to play with a small percentage of the available hero pool, but so far I really enjoy playing the Blood Seeker.
Like Team Fortress 2, you are rewarded random items after a length of time to improve / alter the appearance of your individual heroes. For now, only certain select heroes can have these equipable items, but eventually all the heroes will be able to be pimped out. For example, you can equip a sash or hat to your Invoker hero to alter his appearance slightly. For the time being they seem to be nothing more than cosmetic.
Various items, new announcer packs, chest keys and hero skins can of course be purchase from the DOTA 2 store using real money (similar to how Team Fortress 2 works). Prices seem a little steep for my liking - for example you're looking at $29.99 (R255 ZAR) for a DOTA 2 beta invite and up to $8.99 (R76 ZAR) for an armor set for the Dragon Knight hero. If these prices will change upon final release remains to be seen, but I feel slightly lower pricing is something Valve should look at once it's finally released upon the hungry masses.
DOTA 2 is still in it's beta phase, but I have no doubt that once this game finally launches to the public masses, it will do extremely well. It's a fun game and is a huge improvement over the original and other MOBA competitors out there. It's got all the makings of an enjoyable, competitive and well made game.
Valve have stated that DOTA 2 will be released as Free-to-Play on Steam (yes, you don't need to pay a cent) which given the state of League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and the original DOTA is a wise pricing decision to make. Unfortunately there is no release date given yet for DOTA 2, but my prediction would probably be around the late August - early September time frame.
DOTA 2 is an upcoming Free-to-Play MOBA game being developed and published by Valve. It uses a modified version of the Source engine and is being designed by IceFrog, one of the original DOTA for Warcraft III creators. The game will be released on Steam and will run on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.
