For the first dozen hours or so, you'll be bombarded with too much information and an often unforgiving community of extremely competitive players. But if you persevere, Dota 2 becomes one of the most rewarding and tense team-based multiplayer experiences anywhere in gaming. It's an achievement owed to uncompromising depth, a ridiculously generous free-to-play model, and the great features developer Valve has built up around it.

Even so, Dota 2 remains a place where strangers scream at one another for making mistakes, where hostility has been entrenched by parts of the community as the norm and even desirable. It is certainly not the only game that has this problem, but it can feel unusually intense: perhaps because Dota 2 forces strangers together for so long, or makes them depend on one another so much. The same pressures that make this such a remarkable experience with friends can make it hellish, too, and after six years I couldn't assure you that this is going change. Dota 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend playing it solo until you know what you're getting yourself into.

Dota 2 deserves its intimidating reputation, and it probably won’t suit you if you’re looking to play casually. There’s a huge time investment before you can even enjoy a game, let alone feel competent at it. But once you start to learn its secrets, there’s a wild and exciting variety of play here that’s unmatched, even by its peers. It’s a challenge of knowledge as well as reflexes, and success is a rush. The fact that it’s completely and totally free to play in the way we wish all free-to-play games could be isn’t just one of the most generous propositions anywhere in gaming, it creates a level playing field where skill and cooperation is paramount. May the best team win.

For the first dozen hours or so, you'll be bombarded with too much information and an often unforgiving community of extremely competitive players. But if you persevere, Dota 2 becomes one of the most rewarding and tense team-based multiplayer experiences anywhere in gaming. It's an achievement owed to uncompromising depth, a ridiculously generous free-to-play model, and the great features developer Valve has built up around it. Even so, Dota 2 remains a place where strangers scream at one another for making mistakes, where hostility has been entrenched by parts of the community as the norm and even desirable. It is certainly not the only game that has this problem, but it can feel unusually intense: perhaps because Dota 2 forces strangers together for so long, or makes them depend on one another so much. The same pressures that make this such a remarkable experience with friends can make it hellish, too, and after six years I couldn't assure you that this is going change. Dota 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend playing it solo until you know what you're getting yourself into. Dota 2 deserves its intimidating reputation, and it probably won’t suit you if you’re looking to play casually. There’s a huge time investment before you can even enjoy a game, let alone feel competent at it. But once you start to learn its secrets, there’s a wild and exciting variety of play here that’s unmatched, even by its peers. It’s a challenge of knowledge as well as reflexes, and success is a rush. The fact that it’s completely and totally free to play in the way we wish all free-to-play games could be isn’t just one of the most generous propositions anywhere in gaming, it creates a level playing field where skill and cooperation is paramount. May the best team win.