Yeah, the learning curve is pretty hard. If you are a casual player this might not be a game for you. The concept: This is played like a RTS, but at the beginning of the game you chose a hero, this will be the only unit you have to control (some heroes have additional units to fight with them though -> need micro-ing skill -> harder for new player). Each team of 5 players starts out in their base, the goal is to destroy the "fortress" of the other team (a big building with a lot of health). Each base is defended by several towers (like tower defense games), and at a regular interval, creeps spawn and go toward the enemy base, attacking towers/buildings/players on their way. Your hero gain experience and gold by killing creeps/enemy heroes, he can then buy items to make him stronger. That's about it. A normal game would last for ~40 minutes, total pwnage of the other team can within 20 minutes, and a long game is 1 hour+.

This game is awesome. I've been playing for ~4 months (regularly), I had never played DotA before, but I got hooked. Of course there's a lot of assholes, you WILL get pubstomped, the learning curve is VERY steep (60 heroes ATM, 4 different skills for each, 117 different items, alot of different strategy you have to know, ...). My tips: - Don't listen to the jerks. Somebody talkshit you ? Reply with kind words, he'll be mad. People will call you retard if you don't know what to buy/how to play, just ask them how, if he's a jerk he'll keep flaming you, else he might even help you out. - Don't play for stats (that mean don't steal a killing blow from someone else just for the score). - Don't feed. The most important thing is to survive. Don't suicide just to get a kill, it's not worth it. - Find friends to play with (this really helps to win pub games). - Play in games of your level. - Don't play pubs when the other team has 3+ locks (way to get pubstomped). - Play SD (Single Draft) to try out different heroes, find one you like, get better with him and then try a new one. - Read the forums, there are a lot of guide on pretty much every heroes (skills placement, items builds, skill usage, etc). - If you ever want to play anything else than pubs, don't play EM (Easy Mode). It's not balanced, it makes you learn the bad way, games aren't shorter because you earn gold faster, the other team does as well. - Don't leave your games before concede/victory/defeat. Looking forward to see you play =)