# Dota 2

28 Hacker News commenters recommended Dota 2 and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free competitive team strategy game that runs natively on Linux, with deep mechanics people return to for years. Main caveat: it can absorb thousands of hours.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs natively on Linux (3 comments): "Dota 2 runs natively in Linux, and it's one of the biggest competitive online multiplayer games." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49002869)) "Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48407583)) "The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798162))
- Deep strategy and mechanics (3 comments): "I love to death what you can do within each hero and itemization and strategic layer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229613)) "I play for depth and nuance of mechanics, for connoisseurship and mastery." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48024216)) "whenever i play dota 2 nowadays, i am much more macro oriented" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46222017))
- Competitive play and mastery (3 comments): "I have been more or less hooked on competitive games since I first started playing them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46280544)) "I play for depth and nuance of mechanics, for connoisseurship and mastery." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48024216)) "StarCraft, LoL, DOTA are likely more relevant." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47728601))
- Influential, popular MOBA pioneer (3 comments): "Games like StarCraft, CounterStrike, Warcraft 3/DotA etc were and still are popular in "cybercafes" etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47109437)) "DotA was effectively a simple map that changed online gaming, e-sports" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024055)) "DotA is the better game of the two" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46463514))

## What people warn about

- Addictive, consumes many hours (2 comments): "until a few thousand hours of gameplay later you realise how much of your life you wasted on it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46462841)) "I think i would get addicted to work again like in my past playing dota." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47005721))
- Audio and stutter problems (3 comments): "when I play dota2 and discord because one kills the sound in the other" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49722260)) "but it suffers from microstuttering and that's just killing me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48835868)) "the overall sound quality plummets" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46136967))
- Frequent changes, stale strategies (2 comments): "the scene also got kinda lame and boring with too optimized strategies" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49262860)) "Valve is making changes for the sake of changes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49048204))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [League of Legends](https://hackerapproved.com/p/league-of-legends.md): 16 recommend
- [Deadlock by Valve](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deadlock.md): 11 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Dota 2", https://hackerapproved.com/p/dota-2/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).