HoN is an action real-time strategy video game developed by S2 Games. The game was inspired by the Warcraft III: Frozen Throne custom map Defense of the Ancients (DotA). The game was released on May 2010 and as free-to-play on July 2011.

Recently S2 Games decided to make available all the heroes so that players can enjoy playing their favourite ones without having to wait for a new patch or until they have enough coins to buy it. However this is unfair for some of the HoN players due to the fact that they have paid for the game since it was released.

Gameplay:

“Heroes of Newerth puts two teams of players against each other: the Legion and the Hellbourne. Both teams are based at opposite sides of a map. The standard map is split into three continuous 'lanes', running from one base to the other. Defensive towers are positioned evenly through each lane, until the lanes terminate at a team's base. Bases are strongly defended with extra defensive towers, and buildings from which units spawn. These units, termed 'creeps' are spawned every thirty seconds and run along their lane until they meet opposition - which they then attack. Victory is achieved when one of the teams manages to push into the base of the opposing team, and destroys their primary structure. One team can choose to concede after certain time periods.

Players control a single hero from a top-down perspective, while common features of real time strategy games such as base management and resource collection are removed. Every hero has four abilities that may be acquired and upgraded as the hero gains experience and levels up. Experience is gained for being within the range of enemy units when they are killed. The maximum level a hero may achieve is 25 and the experience required per level gain increases with each new level. The player obtains gold though periodic income and combat experience, which is used for buying items that increase the power of his or her character. The game ends when the opposing team's main structure is destroyed.”

Source

This is very similar to DotA, however S2 Games did not stop here and continued adding more features/maps to the game. At the moment the game has 2 more maps:

Grimm’s Crossing: which is mainly a map designed for a 3v3 team fight.

Mid Wars: a map designed for players who enjoy playing with their team all the time and encountering the opposite team more frequently.

HoN has at the moment 108 heroes and more to be released. Also the HoN Store contains many avatars and other items which can be used for a more enjoyable gameplay and not to give the user an advantage.

If you tend to play a hero more frequently than others, you can also use a guide, not for helping you understand the hero if you already play it but for the fact that you have your main items set up and can easily be bought while playing.

S2 Games allows its players to win experience and coins each time they finish a game and they are rated and statistics are kept on the players' profile for others to see how well they can play.

There are 2 types of Coins for players to use at the store. First are the Gold Coins which players can buy with real money and there are the Silver Coins which they can earn by leveling up or playing games, however as expected, to buy other things from the Store you will need a lot more Silver Coins than Gold ones.

Heroes of Newerth can be downloaded from the official website.

What is Dota 2? (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy)

The simple DotA which most of us still know/play today, was a game mod created by Icefrog for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Frozen Throne. Valve hired Icefrog in 2009 in order to create Defense of the Ancients 2 and also keep most of the content similar so that players which have played it before will be familiar with the new design brought forward by Valve’s Source Engine.

GUI:

The newly designed interface which has a better colour contrast, makes it easier for the user to browse  through the menu and also help him concentrate more on the game. No one likes staring at abstract colours for 40 minutes(average game time) . 

Due to the fact that the whole client is dedicated to a single map (but plenty of game modes), the main menu which is set at the top was better designed in a way which allows the user to switch between tabs instead of going back to the old menu, also the matchmaking system that they’ve implemented is easy to use and allows you to create a party of 5 people and join the game modes and server your heart desires.

Gameplay:

The gameplay consists of two teams battling each other to take over the ancient which the other has to defend at the same time. The two teams known as The Radiant and The Dire, both consist of 5 players, each controlling his unique hero in that particular game.

Heroes:

At the start of every game players select heroes from a pool of 87 (made up from 26 Streght, 27 Agility and 34 Intellect ) heroes, more to be added along the way. Depending on what spells the heroes have and gain with each level up to 16 (max 25) players will get assigned different roles to play: Tank (mainly a strenght hero), Carry (mainly agility), Support(Mainly Intelligence), Disabler(Any type as long as it has hex/stun) etc.

Extra features:

As it was expected with such a big client (aprox. 3GB), more features have been implemented to create a rather new experience for players, such as:

Items – used to customize your favourite hero and amaze others depending on the rarity of that particular item. (can either be won when you level up or if someone uses a Shopkeeper’s Surprise*)

In-game – all the heroes have unique voices and may be heard by other players if they score a point (killing one of the other players), they can also respond depending on what you type E.g. lol, rofl -> the hero will laugh ( 2 different ways) ty,tnx -> the hero will say “Thank you!” (own voice and character) etc.

Settings: players can set up their own keys to use hero spells as well as bag items.

and many more...

The game is in BETA since late 2011 and will be released in 2012 (no specific date) . If you want to try out the game you can buy it from the  official Dota 2 Store or win a BETA key from other websites.