It's a little overhated I think (edit: 6.82). Definitely up there on the shit list but I certainly have never lost my urge to play Dota so quickly as in 7.00 or 7.01 or whatever it is. Everything I personally found good about the game seems to have gotten changed or is at least not as applicable in pubs right now as it was before. Perhaps it just needs a pro tournament to guide people.
Such as? I'm genuinely interested in specifics to people that say talents changed the core game to them, or dota isn't dota anymore. What specifically changed that makes dota less "dota" to you? What is dota to you?
I just see this thrown around on reddit and a lot of places, but no one ever gives specifics; so it's not a question of hate/mocking, but genuine curiosity because to me talents make dota even "more dota-ey" if such a thing is possible. What makes dota fun to me compared to other MOBA's are two things: flexibility of heroes and snowballing/individual potential. The former is how you can tailor your item/skill builds to the game and how a hero can play drastically differently or fulfill different roles based on how you build them -- talents enhance this aspect significantly compared to just stats.
The second aspect is something a lot of MOBA's try to curb -- they reduce hero damage or impact overall so that you are tethered to your team, so one standout player can't control the game and just wreck everyone. I love this aspect of dota, and again, talents enhance this even more. Your talent choices are very meaningful and getting those talents before everyone else, and making the "correct" choices (depending on the game) allow you to exert more dominance than someone who isn't xp efficient, who isn't owning, or who doesn't really pay attention to their talent picks.
As for the pacing concerns, I guess I can understand that but I think 7.01 was a step in the right direction. Overall 1-25 is the same but 10-20 takes just a bit longer relative to what it used to be; that felt like a very good change with addressing the power jump and speed of going 10-20 and picking up 3 talents. Might still need one more small change in that direction (longer 10-20, shorter 20-25), but I'm more OK with the pacing in 7.01 compared to 7.00.
_/¯ 