Heroes of Newerth Review

Heroes of Newerth - Conclusion

As you’d hope for a game with such a fanatical following, HoN is also exceptionally well balanced. While some heroes are perhaps easier to play than others there are almost none that qualify as unfairly good. Every attack has a counter if you know the game and heroes well enough and, while this is yet another unwelcome hurdle for the new player, it only adds to the satisfaction when you totally nullify your enemy with the right combo of abilities.

HoN’s matchmaking system is also worth a mention thanks to being, for once, very capable. Teams are picked with a balanced overall skill level thanks to the new stat tracking system, which means that while teams might have some excellent players they’ll also have rookies to compensate.


One thing that does rankle though is the fact that your $30 game code, purchased directly from S2, is attached to a single in-game account, rather than a master account under which you can have multiple aliases as in MMOs. This means that when you’re finally ready to step up and play the game properly, you’ll still be stuck with the stats from those 0/10 drubbings you received when starting out unless you pay an extra $20 for a second alias. In our opinion that's a little exploitative.

To fairly review HoN, you have to look at it from two separate view points. Firstly, as the seasoned DotA player (and believe us, there are a lot of them) and secondly as a player new to this type of game.

If you’re in the first group then HoN can only be seen as an essential purchase. It offers all the features and visual updates that the genre has been crying out for while hardly touching the core DotA gameplay. The result feels amazingly polished, well balanced and, unlike League of Legends, HoN feels like a proper, finished game in its own right. If you’ll willing to put the time in to relearn the hero roster and item system then make no mistake, Heroes of Newerth blows DotA out of the water and is well worth the $30 price tag.


If you’re the in the latter group though HoN is a much harder sell. Unlike other strategy games there’s no single player component outside of the unchallenging practice mode, so learning the game’s roster and mechanics will be a long, punishing and for the most part pretty miserable experience. In most multiplayer games even if you’re new you’re able to at least help a little or be matched up against opponents of similar skill but in the team based gameplay of HoN your lack of experience is only ever a liability.

There’s just so little in place to help new players that we doubt many who pick HoN up on a whim will come back to it after the second or third try. Newcomers need more help than just a vague nod in the direction of the official forums. This is a real shame as, once you conquer the hugely intimidating peak of the learning curve, there’s an ever changing, intricate and very enjoyable game here that sadly most will be quickly discouraged from ever seeing.

Score Guide