Playing Dota 2 for the first time is like learning to ride a unicycle devilishly hard to do but once you get good at it, extremely satisfying. Peaking at around 700,000 concurrent players a day on Steam (as per Valve data), there are literally hundreds-of-thousands of players who would like nothing more than to humiliate you on the online battle arena action-RTS. A game of Dota 2 features two opposing factions the Radiant and the Dire who must defend their Ancients (or critical structures), meaning if the Ancient is destroyed, your team (normally of 5) loses, with three paths leading to your Ancient being used as a route of attack by the enemy-AI creeps who attempt to destroy your all-important building. So what is the role of the player in Dota 2? You take control of one of the games 107 heroes; immensely powerful units who can use their power and unique special abilities to overwhelm an enemys line of creeps and alter the tide of battle. Your hero starts the game off as a fledgling warrior but will level up as they accumulate more experience in-game, allowing you to level up their abilities. Each has a radically different style, and one of the games most important strategic elements is to select a hero who will be of greatest benefit to the team. With its intensely competitive online community, Dota 2 can be relentlessly unforgiving on the uninitiated but once you find your feet, can be one of the most rewarding strategy games in recent years.