Just a heads up: Dota 2 is now officially out and free to download by all. It can be found in the free to play section of Steam. Hope to see you all in-game!

Started playing way back, but its gonna be fun to get some fresh meat in here.

So...now that this game is like official now it can technically be considered for GOTY right? Specifically it's GOT TO BE Brad's GOTY and it's going to be hilarious. His whole list should just be fucking Dota 2.

I'm really glad that the GB community has helped me get into DotA. Without all of you, I'd never know how amazing of a game this was.

Good news indeed, I hope they release the Mac version soon.

Oh what the hell do I do with all these super valuable Dota 2 steam keys now!

Glad to see they magically disappeared from inventories all over the world. That's actually a pretty hefty feat. I'm impressed.

I might give it a try so I got in the que.

I am worried I'll suck at it, get yelled at, and immediately delete it... so there's that haha

Maybe I'll find some cool Giantbomb people to play with or something.

They have a tutorial in place now (I think they're still gonna add to it) that I find pretty helpful. Also join the GB and Giant Bomb chats and you'll find plenty of people to play with. I've played only like 3 games, but they've all been fun and no one was rotten or anything. Quite the opposite actually. Super helpful.

@kishinfoulux: cool. Good advice. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks!

@cornbredx: Hey just play bots for a few days. Start on easy and work yourself up. Play someone different every time till you find someone you like

Sort of odd that they just flipped the switch today. I expected a bit more buildup. Then again I have been playing Dota 2 for two years now, would just feel weird to have them make some major deal about the release.

Anyways though, new players who want to give this a shot you can go watch my series Dota for Dummies. I try to cover everything you need to know to at least get started and enjoying Dota 2.