Dota 2
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 3 moba games
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.
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.
40 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 28
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 28 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs natively on Linux
“Dota 2 runs natively in Linux, and it's one of the biggest competitive online multiplayer games.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)” “Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better”
Comment from 5 Jun 2026 in “WSL 2 is getting faster Windows file system access” “The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” Deep strategy and mechanics
“I love to death what you can do within each hero and itemization and strategic layer.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “The Importance of Limitations for Creativity and Learning (2023)” “I play for depth and nuance of mechanics, for connoisseurship and mastery.”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to” “whenever i play dota 2 nowadays, i am much more macro oriented”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness” Competitive play and mastery
“I have been more or less hooked on competitive games since I first started playing them”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “We are not here to make code” “I play for depth and nuance of mechanics, for connoisseurship and mastery.”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don't want to” “StarCraft, LoL, DOTA are likely more relevant.”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Great at gaming? US air traffic control wants you to apply” Influential, popular MOBA pioneer
“Games like StarCraft, CounterStrike, Warcraft 3/DotA etc were and still are popular in "cybercafes" etc.”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “Gamedate – A site to revive dead multiplayer games” “DotA was effectively a simple map that changed online gaming, e-sports”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “WorldGen – Text to Immersive 3D Worlds” “DotA is the better game of the two”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Addictive, consumes many hours
“until a few thousand hours of gameplay later you realise how much of your life you wasted on it”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” “I think i would get addicted to work again like in my past playing dota.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Warcraft III Peon Voice Notifications for Claude Code” Audio and stutter problems
“when I play dota2 and discord because one kills the sound in the other”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft patches Windows and Excel – breaks audio, remote access, and paste” “but it suffers from microstuttering and that's just killing me”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Windows Drops Under 60% in Global Desktop OS Share for the First Time in Years” “the overall sound quality plummets”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Why are my headphones buzzing whenever I run my game?” Frequent changes, stale strategies
“the scene also got kinda lame and boring with too optimized strategies”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse” “Valve is making changes for the sake of changes”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “League of Legends designer shares game design field manual”
Other moba games people recommend
The two most recommended other moba games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dota 2This page | 28 | 12 | 70% | 12 | — | Approved |
| League of Legends | 16 | 26 | 38% | 8 | — | — |
| Deadlock by Valve | 11 | 1 | 92% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
37 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“aren't very fun for humans to play against”
“I love to death what you can do within each hero and itemization and strategic layer.”
“so it's just gambling there”
“when I play dota2 and discord because one kills the sound in the other”
“the scene also got kinda lame and boring with too optimized strategies”
“I probably would have switched over from LoL if it were more static”
“the game is always evolving so it's fine”
“Valve is making changes for the sake of changes”
“IceFrog took it to somewhere so high above, saying "next level" is understating it.”
“Dota 2 runs natively in Linux, and it's one of the biggest competitive online multiplayer games.”
“but it suffers from microstuttering and that's just killing me”
“the feeling I have when randomly hearing similar tunes in Dota 2”
“Some games like dota2, and factorio are native linux and work MUCH better”
“Valve popularized the concepts of battle passes (with Dota 2)”
“in DotA you have a really cool sniper!”
“I play for depth and nuance of mechanics, for connoisseurship and mastery.”
“StarCraft, LoL, DOTA are likely more relevant.”
“I can't really balance stuff like dota”
“Welcome to the superior MOBA side.”
“I was never able to enjoy DotA 2 because of this”
“Play games which are beyond that: dota2, cs2 for instance.”
“Games like StarCraft, CounterStrike, Warcraft 3/DotA etc were and still are popular in "cybercafes" etc.”
“it produces nothing of value”
“I think i would get addicted to work again like in my past playing dota.”
“In my experience one can learn more from playing dota than the average social media experience.”
“The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux”
“concluded it wasn't quite like being at a stadium”
“DotA is the better game of the two”
“until a few thousand hours of gameplay later you realise how much of your life you wasted on it”
“I have been more or less hooked on competitive games since I first started playing them”
“whenever i play dota 2 nowadays, i am much more macro oriented”
“all the core gameplay stuff in Dota and CS and be totally free for the average player”
“the overall sound quality plummets”
“All of their games (Dota 2, CS, and the other ones they hardly maintain anymore) are basically just passion projects at this point”
“DotA was effectively a simple map that changed online gaming, e-sports”
“I never got over the lack of automatically moving camera”
“all of which are much better games that you’ve listed”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.