There is a growing interest in the video game genre of multiplayer online battle arenas, or MOBAs.There are 3 main MOBAs out right now, and more are being released in 2015. The MOBA I will be talking about is Defense of the Ancients 2, or DotA 2. This game I think is better than its main competitors, League of Legends and SMITE. In this review I will talk about why I think DotA 2 is better than those games.
  

A MOBA is a game where 10 players, five on each team, play against each other and try to destroy the enemy’s base, or “ancient”. The map has three “lanes” and a jungle with camps for players to defeat for gold and experience. Lanes each spawn small minions, or “creeps”, which walk down the lane and attack anything in their way. When a creep is killed the player who killed it will gain gold, and and all players around will gain experience, which is used to gain levels, which lets you unlock more abilities. In each lane is two towers and a set of barracks, which when killed makes all of the creeps in that lane stronger. After all three sets of barracks are destroyed the teams creeps become mega creeps, which are a lot stronger than normal creeps. There are other game modes for almost every MOBA with different maps and objectives.
  

DotA 2 is an update of DotA 1, which was released in 2003. DotA 2 has most of the same heroes as DotA 1, but with an updated map and much better graphics. Dota 2 outdates its competitors League of Legends by 4 years and SMITE by 1. This means it has smoother gameplay and better graphics then both and looks a lot cleaner. Because of this DotA is more enjoyable to play then LoL and SMITE and looks amazing if played on a computer with good graphic capabilities.
  

Another thing that separates DotA 2 from LoL and SMITE is that it is harder to play because it has harder game mechanics. One of the things that makes it hard is that players lose gold upon death and have a much longer respawn timer, which means that if they are caught out of position they are penalized much more severely. Another thing that makes it harder to play is that it is much harder to “last hit” or land the killing blow on a creep. If a player gets the last hit they earn gold for the kill but if they don’t get it they don’t get any gold at all. And the last thing that makes it harder is that the turrets do much less damage than in LoL or SMITE so it is much easier to be  killed under the tower. I think that it is worth it to learn how to play the game correctly and get good at it because of the enjoyment received out of being good.
  

The last thing that makes DotA 2 better in my opinion is that all the playable characters are free. In LoL and SMITE people have to pay for each hero they unlock, and this can take quite a chunk out of their wallet. In DotA every single hero is free, no matter if it came out when the game was first released or came out last week. Because of this there is a lot more strategic diversity and possible team compositions. It also makes the game more fun because if someone would like to try a hero they don’t have to pay money, they can just try it. There are 109 heroes in DotA 2, 123 in LoL, and 62 in SMITE. So DotA doesn’t have the most heroes, but is very close.
  

In the last international tournament for DotA, held in Seattle on the 8th-21st of august, the prize pool for 1st place was over 5 million dollars, and the total prize pool was 10 million dollars. The victors had to split this 5 ways, but that’s still 1 million dollars for each player. In the World series last year, each player on the boston red socks received 300 thousand dollars each. That means that the DotA 2 champions were payed about 700 thousand dollars more than professional baseball players. That is a lot of money for people playing video games, and the prize pool grows each year. I have played all three of the MOBAs I discussed in this and each is good for its own reasons, but overall I think that DotA 2 is the best. Who knows, maybe one day you will be playing in the international tournament and win 1 million dollars for simply playing a video game.