Giant Bomb Video Game News

One of 2009's oddest trends, to me, is the sudden glut of commercial games based on Defense of the Ancients, the free Warcraft III mod played by a ludicrous number of people worldwide (not to mention paid tribute in any number of amazing pop songs). It's mostly odd because DOTA came out a long time ago, but we're just now seeing games like League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth popping up to take advantage of its hybrid action/strategy format.
 
But would you believe the next great DOTA-style game might be coming from Valve? The company already had a predilection for hiring up skilled mod authors (see: Team Fortress 2), and now it's added current DOTA maintainer IceFrog to its payroll. (IceFrog has been adding onto DOTA and keeping it up to date for a while now, though he's not the original creator; that guy is at Riot Games working on League of Legends.) 
 
Here's what IceFrog had to say over on the DOTA forums. 

I am now leading a team at Valve! I finally have all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right.

My goal and top priority in the future is to solve the surrounding issues that affect the DotA experience in order to allow it to reach new heights. Addressing these issues will enable us to further enjoy aspects of DotA such as the gameplay, mechanics, and in-game feel that currently work well and ought to be maintained. As I've said many times in the past and especially after today's developments, I am very excited about DotA's future! 

Can you imagine a DOTA-style game running on the Source engine, with the quality, personality, and post-release support of something like Team Fortress 2? I can, and that sounds awesome. 
 
(Thanks Shacknews.)