I don’t have years and years of experience in DOTA. I started my journey in the action-real-time-strategy genre playing League of Legends and then eventually moved on to Heroes of Newerth when I grew tired of how boiled down LoL felt. The only real experience I had with DOTA was playing the AI version of the map with some friends at some LAN parties in 2006 or so.

That being said, I was still pretty excited to get into the beta for DOTA 2. Mostly, I was excited to see how the game looked in motion. Simply put, DOTA 2 is an aesthetic triumph. It successfully walks the fine line between realism and cartoon. DOTA 2 isn’t just a pretty face to look at though, the graphics contribute to gameplay in meaningful ways.

One of the hardest skills to acquire in these types of games is being able to perceive where your character is at all times. In LoL and HoN (mostly HoN) team fights are usually a blurred mess of graphical effects, hindering clarity. The crisp effects of DOTA 2 never get in the way though, they have just enough visual impact to let you know they are there but don’t obscure anything.

Another great aesthetic pleasure of playing DOTA 2 is the sound direction. Lines upon lines of dialogue and unit responses have been written and professionally acted for each hero. Many of them elicit a chuckle, and almost all of them contribute to gameplay. For example, you can hear Pudge’s “AAAAHH, FRESH MEAT!” line all the way across the map, letting you know that you can probably tread a little easier knowing that a hook isn’t going to careen into your guts from the fog of war in the next 20 seconds.

From a gameplay perspective DOTA 2 plays exactly as you would expect it to: like DOTA. You still last hit creeps to get gold, push towers, and buy powerful items. Many people have been complaining about a “mushy” feeling or an input delay. This is probably due to the fact that heroes in DOTA 2 have a turning time, unlike in LoL and HoN where they instantly whip around. Personally, this doesn’t bother me and I adjusted fairly quickly.

There’s still a lot of work to be done on DOTA 2. Valve has been patching the game every week and adding new heroes at a good pace. Many of the features are currently unavailable/locked. Who knows which of these features will ultimately make it to release. There’s also the question of whether or not DOTA 2 will make some of the quality of life changes that HoN made such as getting rid of secret shops and having a courier be available to both teams from the get go. There’s not even a concede function yet, and it’s debatable whether one will be put in or not.

Which brings me to my closing thought about DOTA 2. There are many, many people who want the game to just be a graphical upgrade of DOTA 1. Personally, I don’t want Valve’s talents to be wasted on a simple graphical port. I want to see the DOTA 2 evolve into something great.