It’s been a couple of years since we first saw Dota 2 in the wild but we recently got the official full release of Dota 2 on Steam. Dota 2 is the sequel to the Warcraft III mod Defence of the Ancients (DotA) which is considered the first game in the MOBA genre.

I’ve not gotten into Dota 2 yet but now might be as good a time as any if you’re curious about Dota 2, MOBAs or one of the more popular e-sports in the industry right now. Seeing as Dota 2 is a free-to-play game that doesn’t try to gouge you at every opportunity, that puts it above the competition right from when you start it up.

Meristation (100%): They are many great titles over the years, but few are those who are not only excellent but also make the lives of their players, making it a special place to gather with friends, beyond the distance or problems life. A title can be extraordinary for days or weeks, but to be for more than a decade has to be something very special and that is the legacy that DOTA 2 honours with honours.

Eurogamer (90%): Being the largest and most immediately open MOBA, with Valve showcasing its talent for rewarding and fostering a community, it demands and offers more than literally any game I can think of. It’s almost more comparable to basketball than most commercial games. Something utterly opaque bearing no endgame, but that could happily fill every waking second of your life.

GameSpot (90%): This is a free-to-play game, but it’s one which sets itself apart by being an unquestionably fair one: every hero is immediately available to all players, unlike in League of Legends, and real-money purchases of weapons, hats, and armour are purely cosmetic… At the end of each game, players are subjected to a showering of random loot drops, and it’s easily possible to notch up hundreds of items just by playing normally for six months… Those who choose to commit to Dota 2 will find many happy hours within this immaculate update.

Metro (80%): Gaming’s ultimate eSport gets a well-considered makeover by the masters at Valve, although new ideas, and fixes for old problems, are currently thin on the ground.

GameReactor Sweden (70%): The game is being ravaged by a tight learning curve and a social environment so inhospitable that you become afraid of the dark. To get into the game takes time, hard work and patience. It is only through the experience of hundreds of games that you really begin to dissect out the magic that makes Dota 2 for great entertainment.