What we know:

Valve knows that Defense of the Ancients can be serious business and really wants to enter the market, enough to poach one of the man most associated with the original Warcraft III mod, IceFrog, and give him the resources needed to re-create the experience with better graphics and updated mechanics.

The game will have the same basic structure, with the gamers controlling heroes while a number of lesser troops are fighting around them and a number of talents and objects available to enhance the fighting abilities of the characters.

Until now Valve has not revealed exactly how many heroes it will offer on launch and how many arenas will be offered to battle on.

The Valve DOTA project will have to compete with Blizzard’s own attempt to use the Starcraft heroes in a similar way and with the already established League of Legends.

DOTA 2 also has the edge when it comes to possible audience, because Valve can quickly make it available to the huge Steam customer base and could opt to make most or even all of the game available via the free-to-play business model.

Why it matters:

DOTA 2 could be the game that makes the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre go mainstream while at the same time delivering the first gaming experience that can appeal at the same time to the free-to-play crowd and to the hardcore set.

A lot hinges on the way that the development at Valve manages to balance the complex mechanics with learning mechanics and the possibility of free to play with long term rewards.

At the moment DOTA 2 is in beta and initial reports are encouraging but the game still has a lot to prove in front of a wider audience.

The full Incoming 2012 series of articles can be read on Softpedia right here.