I've kind of been looking for an excuse to at least check out Magic the Gathering, and after watching the quick-look (and admittedly being super confused) I am considering picking up 2013 and dabbling in it a bit. I've always wanted to try and get into MTG and this seems like a much cheaper and easier way than picking up a bunch of cards.
Basically just wondering if this is even possible? Is it simply too late? Does the game explain MTG well enough that a completely new player can jump in?

I've never played it before and I found the tutorial to be actually pretty great. I've beat a few of the easy AI guys so I'd say it's possible to learn the basics. You'll always hit a wall when it comes to real life MTG by the nature of playing against people. I also have no idea how good it'll be at teaching deck building. Overall though, for the price it's a bloody great teacher and better than crying and playing by yourself in a dark corner covered in peanut butter.

Everything that @ZoomyRamen said is about right. I'd just add that it can be an okay deck editing teacher, but it doesn't spell it out for you like the rest of the game does. When you start getting comfortable, start looking at your decks, think about ratios to get specific cards and edit your decks from there.

Yes, but it can turn you away compleatly too. Just by virtue of the non-randomness in the game.

I remember this from back in the day. 15-16 years ago. A bunch of kids at school had decks. I was solidly in the upper section of players, but these two bastards had black decks stacked with black lotus, nightmares, and chaos orbs. I built a custom deck to combat this, and managed to smoke one of the guys after he totally missed on a chaos orb toss, after which I retired from MTG. The kid got pissed, and ending up leaving the school shortly thereafter. Probably not due at all to me, but I like to take a bit of the credit. The other champ ended up getting expelled a year later, but by then everyone else had moved on to trying to get with girls and outdoor activities.

The kid got pissed, and ending up leaving the school shortly thereafter. Probably not due at all to me, but I like to take a bit of the credit.

As others have said, it's a great teaching tool if you've never played. It won't really teach you anything about deck building though.

If you want to take the next step on the Magic road later, I would suggest going to a local Friday Night Magic and purchasing one of the $30 event decks to play with. The people there will teach you the things that DotP can't, and most everyone there will be friendly and willing to help out new players.

@Dagbiker said:

Yes, but it can turn you away compleatly too. Just by virtue of the non-randomness in the game.

Wha?

The game doesn't tell you a thing about proper deck editing, at least based on the number of people I've played against online with monstrous, 90-card decks in tow. You never want to have more than 60 cards in your deck, because each extra somewhat okay card is just getting in the way of you drawing your really good cards.

I think the game is designed to get one into MtG, quite ingenously so in fact.

Then again I already knew how to play.

I say try it. Isn't the demo free?? Why do you even have to ask then.