Alrighty, here's the basic rundown of the game and what's currently in beta 1 and my impressions and what not:
For anyone not familiar with how this game (or DOTA, since the basics are obviously very similar) works, there's basically one big symmetrical map with two sides. Both sides have portals that spawn NPCs, item shops, and your stronghold. If your stronghold gets destroyed, you lose. You control one super powerful unit, who gains experience from capturing flags, killing creeps (NPCs), and killing other demigods. As you gain experience, you level up and get skill points to spend on buying new skills, gaining passive buffs, or just general stat boosts. You also gain gold which you use to buy items.
On the map that comes with this beta, there is basically 3 lanes that connect one base to the other. The game spawns NPCs in waves and they follow a set path that sorta connects like this:
As the game progresses, the NPCs that spawned become increasingly more powerful and diverse. At first you start out with basic melee minotaurs, then they add in archers, then catapulsaurs, then archangels that fly around, then giants that are almost as big as Rook and almost do as much damage (but nowhere near as much HP). In the very middle of the map where the creeps go around is a flag you can capture and you and your enemy's artifact shops. Capturing the flag doubles the amount of creeps your portals spawn, so you see how this is a fairly important part of the map. Artifacts are powerful items that can actually function like secondary skills. I think some function like normal items, but some have a cooldown and can be reused.
The three demigods you can choose from are The Rook, Torchbearer, and Regulus.
The Rook is the big walking castle that everyone notices when they first see the game. He's very slow and very large, but he can do massive damage. He also has the most HP. His 4 abilities are a big hammer slam that does AOE damage, an ability that lets him leech life from a building, one that lets him roll a rock in a straight line and stun anyone who gets hit, and one that lets him pop up a tower of light anywhere. His passive abilities can do things like increase his weapon damage, add towers, archers, catapults to his back/shoulders and a few more.
Torchbearer is the undead norseman fellow who also has been shown a lot. He is unique in that he actually has 8 abilities, 4 tied to his ice mode, the other 4 tier to his fire mode. His ice mode has an AOE damage spell, an AOE stun, and single target stun. His fourth ability in ice mode is called "Reliving the Immolation" which switches to his fire mode for about a minute. In fire mode his abilities are a single target nuke, an AOE dot, an AOE damage spell, and another AOE damage spell. He has low HP but his fire stuff can do a good damage from an okay range. His 2 passive abilities are auras. His fire one increases the attack speed of allies (and it stacks the longer you are in range) and his ice one slows the attack (and run speed? I think) of enemies and stacks over time.
Regulus is the human guy (Well, fallen angel). He's also a ranged attacker. 2 of his abilities are mines. One does damage, the other stuns demigods. He has one long range nuke that doesn't do as much as Torchbearer's fire one but he can potentially be further away. His other ability is an AOE damage spell. His passive buffs do things like increase his attack range (he can sit pretty far out) or add a snare effect to his attacks, increase his run speed (I may be
Due to the constant NPC spawn waves there's never a dull moment except for maybe the very end when you're staring down impending doom. Even that won't last terribly long.
I'm not a DOTA player, but I do understand some of the mechanics. Some players may or may not be upset to hear that there isn't any denying. There may be a gold/xp bonus if you last hit an enemy creep/demigod, it doesn't pop up gold and XP gain. Some standard DOTA tactics/techniques like staying, pushes, permastuns, etc. still apply.
I mentioned it a little earlier regarding performance, but the game runs about as well as SupCom at around the...early-middlish part of matches. Way before people have thousands of units and stuff starts to slowdown. It is completely consistant throughout, though. There is a weird framerate drop when item shop menus are open, but that's not quite on the level of SupCom game speed sinking and I'd imagine completely fixable.
