It seems that Valve originally had plans to launch the game some time next year, and they had plans to use a good part of 2012 to beta test the game, slowly adding heroes over time until they have reached the level that they are in the Warcraft III mod version of DotA, which is still extremely popular even until today. However due to feedback from fans and players, people just wanted to play the game which was why Valve has decided to bring forward the release date.
“Our original plan was to spend the next year or so in beta, adding new features and slowly growing the number of heroes until we reached a level of parity with Dota 1, at which point we’d release Dota 2 to the world” – ”But the feedback we’re seeing everywhere is that people just want to play it, even though there’s still a ton of heroes yet to be implemented. We’ve also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they’ve had. So we decided our original plan was dumb.”
While we’re sure that Valve had good intentions of bringing us the best possible quality game they could put out, let’s not forget that the original DotA started out with only a handful of heroes, and over time more were being added along with new items and changes in game mechanics, which proved that as long as good quality gameplay is there, people will play despite the limited choice of heroes to choose from. If you’re interested in playing the beta, head on down to DotA 2’s website for more information.