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What are the best free PC games that can easily be played with friends?

14

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Considered

27

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Recs.

Jun 27, 2018

Last
Updated

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13 Options Considered

13 Options Considered	Price	Steam Rating	Genre
-- Team Fortress 2	Free	Very Positive	Hero-based FPS
-- Path of Exile	Free	Very Positive	Dungeon Crawler RPG
-- Heroes of the Storm	Free	–	–
-- Warframe	Free	–	Action
-- Paladins	FREE	–	–

Team Fortress 2

Top Pro

Hectic FPS gameplay that utilizes 9 distinct classes, each with lots of varied items

TF2 has 9 playable classes - Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Medic, Sniper and Spy. This allows for a range of playstyles. For example, the Heavy, starting with 300 health (going up to 450), wielding a machine gun and usually assisted by a Medic, will be commonly found on the front-lines soaking up lots of damage and pulling the enemy team's focus; at the same time the Engineer will try and avoid direct battle as much as possible, providing infrastructure (teleports, sentry, dispensers). Add to this hundreds of weapons for each class providing different stats and you have an impressive amount of variety in gameplay. See More

Top Con

Random critical hits add a significant luck element into the game and push certain types of players out

In most 'public' servers, an option called 'random crits' (short for 'random critical hits') exists by default. This allows a random percentage of your shots to multiply damage by 3 for a shot, and also remove the damage drop-off over range. This 'feature' gets increasingly more annoying as you get more experienced, as you will die more often than your opponent having x3 or more damage over you, actively making their experiences and wins less meaningful. Some classes are especially burnt by this. Medics don't use weapons often, Snipers only have secondary weapons and melees, and Spies only have their revolver (and most sidegrades of that revolver remove this ability entirely). Quickplay (a feature most newbies use to get a match) also disables these servers from appearing in the list, so there are very few 'nocrit' servers because many don't know they exist. See More

Top Pro

Tons to do in the game with plenty of game modes and plenty of community mods

TF2 has more than 10 game modes, plus variations on those, as well as community mods that offer a wide range of objective-based play. Classic game modes include Capture the Flag, Control Point, King of the Hill and Payload. There's also Mann vs. Machine, a co-operative game mode where you play against waves of AI controlled enemies. See More

Top Con

Free accounts are slightly limited

Free accounts do not get rare and cosmetic items nor as many storage slots for items. Items are relevant as free accounts can only hold 50, while the game has much more than 50 pieces of equipment (that affect gameplay), let alone 50 weapons. While a premium account player can react to almost all situations with a counter item, with only 50 slots a newbie probably won't have or even be able to access it. A full inventory also means a free player will have to miss out or delete exclusive event items and cosmetics just to play the game as full as they can. A free account is upgraded when any item is purchased with real money from the store. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

The game runs on Windows, OS X and Linux machines. See More

Top Pro

Offline LAN support is pretty easy to implement

As long as users have logged in to offline mode on Steam before trying a LAN connection, LAN will work. Which could be an area of confusion, but luckily is easy enough to do if you know you need to do it. See More

Top Pro

Fun and humorous gameplay with graphics and sound that fit with this theme

This game has a history of over-the-top characters, visuals, voice-overs, and various other items, which altogether create an amusing world both within the game and outside of it as well. You get a feeling a lot of thought has gone into the development of the characters as well as the world they live in. For a genre that is often filled with drab characters in a drab world, it is refreshing to see something so well fleshed out. See More

Top Pro

Completely free to download and play any existing section of the game

The game can be downloaded and played for free, allowing anyone to try it out. There are some items that can be purchased with money, but those are optional and only decorative. See More

Top Pro

Includes Mann vs. Machine, a ridiculously fun co-op mode

Mann vs. Machine is a co-op mode in Team Fortress 2 that is comprised of gameplay in which 6 players team up to stop AI robots from deploying a bomb. Though not the central gameplay of Team Fortress 2, it is a mode that allows for co-op play to be enjoyed with the characters of the game. Mann vs machine works quite well over LAN and is very fun to boot. See More

Top Pro

Pretty good VR support and options

To enable VR support, type -vr in console. TF2 has 8 modes in which to control the game. They can be changed with the command vr_moveaim_mode in console. They offer choice in what combination of aiming and steering should be coupled to the rift and mouse and introduce the concept of dead zones - an area of the screen that controls differently when aiming or steering within its bounds than outside them. Typing vr_calibration in console gives access to adjusting interpupillary distance (distance between eyes). You can get that information from an optician or use the calibration tool to help figure it out and set it there. Calibration will help set accurate render point (camera position) and reduce nausea. See More

Top Pro

Engaged, active, fun, and creative community give the game a welcoming feel, even for outsiders

The TF2 community is know for actively engaging in different TF2 related activities. They create shorts using the source filmmaker, sell items via the steam workshop, build real-life sculptures, etc. See More

Top Pro

Fair free to play model

This game is mostly pay-to-gain, as in to get more weapons. You can randomly get things, though. You can use the things you randomly get to be also used in crafting recipes to make other things. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Hero-based FPS

Publisher:Valve

Platforms:Win / Mac / Linux

See All Specs >

Path of Exile

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Top Pro

Not pay to win

The developers have a strict "no pay to win" mindset on this game. Which is GREAT since everyone has a fair chance at winning. The only in-game purchases are decorative, extra stash slots, non combat pets and better graphics for your weapons. See More

Top Con

Graphics are a bit ho-hum

While not the worst, the graphics do not really stand out as polished and look somewhat dated. While it does fit within theme of being a grimy universe with many foul creatures, it does not compare to many AAA dungeon crawlers out there such as Diablo III. See More

Top Pro

Expansive skill tree

While it may be difficult to take in at first the skill tree in Path of Exile is quite expansive allowing for many areas of the characters skills to be customized. The tree is so large there are numerous guides online on how to build specific optimized characters as well as an unofficial companion app for Android. See More

Top Con

As any ARPG worth mentioning, you'll eventually have to invest time into character builds

Top Pro

As good as Diablo

Top Con

Rubberbanding disrupts play

Online play with melee classes may lead to some "rubberbanding" when latency causes the player's computer to desync from the server. See More

Top Pro

Completely free to download and play

Just install steam and download the game. No purchase required and the only thing locked behind paywalls is cosmetic accessories and inventory slots of which you can waste money on cosmetics, but you won't fall behind if you don't want to spend money. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Dungeon Crawler RPG

Platforms:Windows

Heroes of the Storm

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Top Pro

Easy to learn

Heroes of the Storm was created to be a streamlined, modern take on a MOBA, something that many others have aimed for but HotS succeeds in. Shared XP keeps teams leveling together; No Last Hits means that everyone gets XP from minions and puts less importance on who gets the kill, since there is no Carry-player. Choosing talents instead of having to buy items gives the game complexity without forcing players to wade through menus and travel back to base. The game still offers a challenge to master at higher levels, but is more accessible to new players. See More

Top Con

Designed around team play (per the MOBA genre)

Heroes of the Storm has been designed around team play, as the company calls it a Hero Brawler, that focuses more on team fights and working toward objectives as a team. As with most team based games, this means that if a player chooses to solo queue, that it may be difficult to play and coordinate with the rest of your team. The game does provide chat and a ping system similar to other MOBAs. See More

Top Pro

Hero and playstyle diversity

Blizzard has gone above and beyond to introduce Heroes that break the standard molds for Tanks/Support/Damage characters. The talent system allows for diversity in how a character plays, even if they are considered Support, they can go for damage or utility. Each Hero has 2 Heroic Abilities(Ultimates) providing even more diversity in how each character can be played. Also, Blizzard has introduced several unique heroes, like Lost Vikings: which are 3 heroes in one, and can be controlled separately; Also, newly added Cho'Gall, which required 2 people to control 1 hero. See More

Top Con

Slow fights

Heroes inflict little damage to each other, which has the potential to make fights seem long. On top of this when one falls behind many of their skill will become useless making for a fight that one is delegated to a support role, which will also add to the slow feeling of a fight. See More

Top Pro

Marked difficulty ratings for heroes

Each hero has a marked difficulty rating to make it easier for users to pick the player that best suits them. See More

Top Pro

Community

Blizzard has a history of fostering great community. Blizzard allows players to flag themselves as looking for group, and will suggest to other players. Heroes also has WoW-like chat channels that make it easy to find people to play with. See More

Top Pro

Shorter game times

Decreasing the importance of "laning" and increasing team fights and map objectives. Also, many map objectives keep the games to time limits between 15 - 30 minutes. Much more manageable for people not able to commit an hour to one match. AI games are even shorter. See More

Top Pro

12 available maps

Top Pro

Every hero is playable

The game balance in HoTS is amazing. Even heroes that are ranked by pros as the worst heroes in the game can win MVP. Even the supposedly "broken" heroes are not far above average See More

Top Pro

1st Esport broadcast on live network television

While other esports have aired on ESPN 3, Heroes of the Storm was the first video game broadcast live on Network TV on ESPN 2. Blizzard hosted the Heroes of the Dorm tournament, also one of the first college esports events, in which college teams played for the prize of full college tuition. See More

Top Pro

Teamwork is encouraged

Top Pro

Characters from all Blizzard games

Heroes of the storm has a mish-mash of characters from many of Blizzards popular titles. See More

Top Pro

Fun emotes from Hero's upon team work and team kills

If you play Nova and Kill Vala, Nova will say "HUNTER!?!? more like Hunted!!" Or if you play support and heal Raynor he will say "This medic is my new best friend". These emotes make it very clear what happened, and add a dimension of fun that you don't see in other MOBAs. See More

Specs

Publisher:Blizzard

Available on Steam:No

Warframe

Top Pro

Great Community

The community in Warframe is great and the player base is quite strong. See More

Top Con

Very Grindy

The game can get quite grindy, so if grinding is not your thing, you might be frustrated with it. See More

Top Pro

Amazing Visuals

The graphics in this game are very gorgeous and quite well optimized. You won't have problem running this game on a semi decent gaming system. See More

Top Pro

Diverse weapons and armor

The weapons and armor in this game are very diverse. Ranging from rifles to swords to shurikens to staffs to even flame throwers, and you can't forget the bows. Also, there are quite various and cool abilities for every Warframe (the armors). See More

Top Pro

Supports 4-player Co-op

You can get into games with up to 3 more people at once. See More

Top Pro

Fast paced gameplay

Gameplay is quite fast paced. You're a space ninja after all. See More

Specs

WildStar

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Top Pro

Action-based combat

Action based combat makes Wildstar fun and fast paced. You can miss with any ability as they require aiming and timing for many to hit. No tab targeting press and forget attacking here, which makes for interactive and fulfilling combat. See More

Top Con

Subscription/cash shop may give upper hand

The Developers have been careful to avoid pay-to-win, but being a subscriber or paying some real money for in game quality of life perks can be a big bonus, and offer monthly rewards. See More

Top Pro

Indepth and original IP

Wildstar is set in an universe crafted by well known developers the ground up to be fun and enjoyable, but also new and original. See More

Top Pro

Free to play

Wildstar recently followed many other triple A titles in offering a very well done free to play option. Subscriptions are still available for those diving deep into the game. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Unturned

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Co-Op:24, Recommended. 48, Max (Will not be shown on the server list)

Controller Support:No

See All Specs >

League of Legends

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Top Pro

3 different maps

There are three different maps that users can play on, which offers a bit of a change up of play and familiarity as well as allows for the player to not get burnt out on a singular stage played over and over again. See More

Top Pro

10 free champions in weekly rotations

Top Pro

3 different maps

There are three different maps that users can play on, which offers a bit of a change up of play and familiarity as well as allows for the player to not get burnt out on a singular stage played over and over again. See More

Top Pro

3 different maps

There are three different maps that users can play on, which offers a bit of a change up of play and familiarity as well as allows for the player to not get burnt out on a singular stage played over and over again. See More

Top Pro

League of Legends Championship Series

League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is a weekly 10-team league. See More

Top Pro

Is free to play.

It's free to play without being pay to win. See More

Top Pro

Constant champion reworks and visual updates.

They are updating champions that have "outdated" gameplay/visuals on a regular basis. And usually they hit bull's eye, giving those champions new life and making them feel "right" to player (there are much more praises than complaints from the comunity). See More

Top Pro

FUN mode every weekend! New fun mode every second weekend.

There are a number of fun mode that are switched on friday evening and switched off monday evening, rotating every two weeks. This include always highly awaited URF (Ultra Rapid Fire), AR URF (all-random URF), Nexus Siege, Hunt of the Blood Moon, Legend of the Poro King, Doom Bots of Doom, Hexakill, Ascension etc. See More

Top Pro

Constant champion reworks and visual updates.

They are updating champions that have "outdated" gameplay/visuals on a regular basis. And usually, they hit bull's eye, giving those champions new life and making them feel "right" to the player (there are much more praises than complaints from the community). See More

Top Pro

Constant champion reworks and visual updates

They are updating champions that have "outdated" gameplay/visuals on a regular basis. And usually they hit bull's eye, giving those champions new life and making them feel "right" to player (there are much more praises than complaints from the comunity). See More

Top Pro

Largest diversity of champions with unique play styles

Having 134 champions League of Legends is ought to offer the greatest diversity and it delivers. Many champions have long combos that need precision in positioning and timings on par with fighting games, while others can be effective without combos at all. Also many champions feel really unique (not necessary complicated) in play style, unseen in other MOBAs. See More

Top Pro

The most popular MOBA by a huge margin

More than 27 million players log in each day to play the game and more than 67 million players log in to play each month. It has peaked at 7.5 million concurrent players. See More

Top Pro

One of the world's biggest e-sports titles

League of Legends is one of the worlds top e-sport titles placing fifth in highest prize pools. See More

Top Pro

Frequently updated

LoL has frequent patches pushed to the game client. See More

Specs

Publisher:Riot Games

Available on Steam:No

Number of Heroes:140

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

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Top Pro

Near-perfect balance between going first or second

There's no significant first-turn or second-turn advantage in Hearthstone. The player going second gets an extra card from his deck as well as "The Coin", a card that gives one extra mana crystal for one turn. This subverts the advantage that would be gained otherwise by the player going first. See More

Top Pro

Card balances and game updates often

The Hearthstone team is always looking at their data and community reaction towards cards and the state of the game, and they have made many card and game changes/updates to balance and improve the game for all players. See More

Top Pro

Free to play that doesn't exploit

Yes it's free to play, but it's designed to easily continue to play and have fun without having to feel like you HAVE to pay. At the same time, after playing a while you'll probably want to. See More

Top Pro

Great if you don't take it too seriously

HS is meant to be fun, lighthearted, and generally casual. It requires a lot of time and money investment if you wish to play seriously. See More

Top Pro

You won't be cursed at in the chat

Interaction with opponent limited to simple pre-made phrases, so you don't have to see how many 1337 gamers had their way with you or your mother. Or deal with the spam about free decks, new hacks etc. See More

Top Pro

Entertaining voice acting

The voice work really adds to the game and makes it entertaining to play. See More

Top Pro

Brawl events, that don't require you to follow "the meta"

You can take advantage of weekly brawl events that give you a certain set of cards (so no need to pay to stay competitive). It keeps the game fresh, fun and fairly "casual". See More

Top Pro

Brawl events, that don't require you to follow "the meta"

You can take advantage of weekly brawl events that give you a certain set of cards (so no need to pay to stay competitive). It keeps the game fresh, fun and fairly "casual". See More

Top Pro

Multi-platform

Available on PC and on mobile. Makes a great commute companion (provided you have internet). See More

Top Pro

Active community

It has a lot of players due to Blizzard's fanbase which means finding multiplayer matches is not all that difficult. See More

Top Pro

Great even for casual players

Hearthstone has a friendly learning curve that makes picking it up and getting started easy for people who don't want to spend a lot of time learning rules and tricks. See More

Dota 2

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Top Pro

Incredibly deep gameplay

For players who put the time into Dota 2 to get past the early beginner phase, Dota 2 can become an extremely satisfying game. There's a reason it's one of the most popular eSports titles in the world. The amount of strategy, skill and variables involved make it a very deep game where anything could happen. See More

Top Con

Rude, toxic community

Many players feel free to flame and insult, especially in the lower ranks and from non-english speaking countries. See More

Top Pro

Game balanced well by IceFrog

Gameplay is balanced in the sense that while other MOBAs would have only around 30-60 viable picks for the competitive scene, Dota 2 has heroes and strategies in the game that are more varied, which enables more heroes to be picked in the competitive scene. Number of Heroes Picked in Dota 2's Recent Major Tournament in the past 4 months (as of July 2016) is 86/111 heroes picked and 100 out of 111 heroes picked. To compare between Dota 2 and LoL pick diversity, LoL has 64 out of 131 champions picked for LCS. There are also factors such as the ban/pick phase difference and the more rigid positions in LoL that may limit the viability for different playstyles and hero picks (typically it is 2 (AD, Support Bot) -1 (AP mid) -1 (Tank Off) - 1 (Jungler), with a possibility of double junglers in LoL). On the other hand in Dota 2, there are a lot more different positions compared to Lol/Smite such as Duo Mid (1-2-2), Traditional (2-1-2), One Jungler (1-2-1-1, most similar to league), One Roamer (1-2-1-1 as well with the difference being the hero roams the map for kills to create space for the mid and safelane rather than farm the jungle which can weaken a lane), Duo Roamer (1-1-1-2, all lanes are weaker in lane presence with the tradeoff being they get solo experience with two aggressive supports roaming), Trilane (1-1-3, Aggresive or Passive Trilane) and Abandoned Offlane (0-1-3-1 where the offlane is completely left empty due to a strong duo or trilane on the opposing team). More heroes are viable and balanced in Dota 2 partly due to the greater flexibility in laning. This can be attributed the mechanics such as creep pulling and creep stacking which allows the team doing trilane to make up for the shared experience between three heroes. Besides that, the existence of teleport scrolls that allow you to defend your towers or punish a tower dive also allows you to react and assist other lanes. In pub games, any hero/lane/lineup can work, and it is more about your individual mechanical skills (understanding of hero, combo execution, map awareness, last hitting, timings, item builds, flow) over the lack of coordination and teamwork (on both teams). See More

Top Con

Game has been broken down to make it noob friendly

Top Pro

Most Diverse MOBA

This game has a steep learning curve, but it's well worth it. The games that came after Dota like League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Smite, and other lookalikes don't even compare to the complexity of Dota 2. Every hero is unique and valuable in one team composition or another. The amount of versatility of each hero is amazing as well. The mechanics by far destroy any other Dota style game (MOBA) and that's what makes this game top tier in it's genre. This game is the highest grossing E-Sport game in the world and will probably continue to be for a long time. See More

Top Con

You love and hate the game

While infuriating at times the addictiveness of the game keeps the players coming back. See More

Top Pro

Dota 2 has the world's biggest e-sports tournament

At The International 4 in summer 2014, players raised the prize pool to more than $10 million, one of the largest prize pools in E-Sports history. See More

Top Con

Will consume a lot of time if you are not careful

Dota 2 has the potential to suck the player in. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Available on Windows, OS X, and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Players can trade self-made cosmetic items

The game includes a system for players to create, buy, and sell cosmetic items. See More

Top Pro

Deny creeps

You can kill your own low-health creeps to deny experience and gold to the other team. See More

Top Pro

Regularly updated

Dota 2 is regularly patched and changed with new characters being introduced and balance changes made. This can prevent the game from becoming too stale as the tactics utilized by players changes often. See More

Top Pro

Very active professional scene

Dota 2 has one of the most if not the most active professional scenes in e-sports today. See More

Top Pro

Moba-leading graphics

When compared to other leading MOBAs, Dota2 has some of the best graphics to be found. See More

Top Pro

Start with all heroes

You don't need to unlock or purchase characters. See More

Top Pro

Fair free-to-play business model

Microtransactions involve only cosmetic items such as custom weapon designs or clothing colors and tickets to view live events. See More

Top Pro

Has user-created custom games

Dota 2 includes Workshop Tools that allow users to create custom games as well as other play them. See More

Top Pro

Can be played online and offline

With different Bots difficulty levels, if you play offline, you still need to be logged in Steam. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Sven Co-op

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Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Photon Rush

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25 Community Recommendations

+3

Request recommendations from the community

InventivePyroeis

Contributor for 6 months

2

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0

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Team Fortress 2

6 months ago

Terrible grafics

Random critical hits add a significant luck element into the game and push certain types of players out

Free accounts are slightly limited

Contributor for 9 months

46

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5.2K

Total
Karma

Recommended 7 months ago

Overall quite enjoyable. Especially if involving community. Grind and waiting times for new gear can be boring though.

Amazing Visuals

Great Community

Contributor for 2 years

603

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108K

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Recommended 7 months ago

I've been playing this game since the fall of 2016, and the game is definitely in my 'must play' list. First, it doesn't require a lot of skills/experience to start playing the game as Hi-Rez did a nice job of balancing players' MMR so that the newbies will pretty much always end up playi...

Creative Characters

Contributor for 3 months

1

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0

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Team Fortress 2

Recommended 3 months ago

Hailee hasn’t added their experience, pros or cons to their recommendation.

GenerousChemosh

Contributor for 6 months

1

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0

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Recommended 6 months ago

GenerousChemosh hasn’t added their experience, pros or cons to their recommendation.

InventivePyroeis

Contributor for 6 months

2

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0

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Recommended 6 months ago

Great Community

Amazing Visuals

Contributor for 6 months

38

Total
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1.8K

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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Recommended 6 months ago

Near-perfect balance between going first or second

Card balances and game updates often

Free to play that doesn't exploit

Contributor for 6 months

38

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1.8K

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League of Legends

Recommended 6 months ago

3 different maps

10 free champions in weekly rotations

3 different maps

Contributor for 7 months

139

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2.6K

Total
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Heroes of the Storm

Recommended 7 months ago

Contributor for a year

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Recommended 7 months ago

Great hasn’t added their experience, pros or cons to their recommendation.

Currently displaying 10 out of 25 total recommendations.

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