When comparing Dota 2 vs Portal 2, the Slant community recommends Portal 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best multiplayer games on Steam?” Portal 2 is ranked 7th while Dota 2 is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Portal 2 is:
While Portal 2 requires focus and logic, it does not punish players for causing a bit of mischief. The instant respawn system means trolling your friend will affect almost nothing in the game, as there are no in-game setbacks when you die. Being able to stop at any point in the game to just goof around is great for releasing some steam, even when it is at the expense of your co-op partner.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Start with all heroes
You don't need to unlock or purchase characters.
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.
Pro A very 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 its genre. This game is the highest grossing eSport game in the world and will probably continue to be for a long time.
Pro It's very well-balanced
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, Aggressive 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).
Pro Has user-created custom games
Dota 2 includes Workshop Tools that allow users to create custom games as well as other play them.
Pro Moba-leading graphics
When compared to other leading MOBAs, Dota2 has some of the best graphics to be found.
Pro In-game mic
Has in-game mic so you can get toxic with voice chat.
Pro Cross-platform
Available on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Pro Very active professional scene
Dota 2 has one of the most active professional scenes in eSports today. If it's not the most active, it's certainly got the largest prize pools, coming in at over $20 million in 2016.
Pro Players can trade self-made cosmetic items
The game includes a system for players to create, buy, and sell cosmetic items.
Pro Dota 2 has the world's biggest e-sports tournament
At The International 7 in summer 2017, players raised the prize pool to more than $23 million, one of the largest prize pools in sSports history.
Pro Can be played online and offline
However, you will need to be logged in to Steam either way.
Pro Good for brain
Trains brain hard.
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.
Pro Co-op does not punish when you want to goof off with or troll the other player
While Portal 2 requires focus and logic, it does not punish players for causing a bit of mischief. The instant respawn system means trolling your friend will affect almost nothing in the game, as there are no in-game setbacks when you die. Being able to stop at any point in the game to just goof around is great for releasing some steam, even when it is at the expense of your co-op partner.
Pro Huge selection of user-generated content that should appeal to any use-case
The game has more than 60,000 co-op puzzles created by users through the Steam Workshop and through mods. Because it is user-generated content, the quality and size of these puzzles vary widely, including everything from simple, one-off chambers to full-fledged expansions with high-quality stories, voice-overs, and new gameplay elements (for example, Mel). By having such a selection of content, there should be something that appeals to just about anything someone is looking for.
Pro Entertaining and well delivered voice acting
Voice acting for Wheatley the AI robot is done by Stephen Merchant (Extras, The Office UK, Life's Too Short) in humorous fashion. His delivery is well executed on all dialogue. On top of this specific experience, the rest of the voice acting of every other character in the game is performed just as well, in part due to the fact that the dialogue was written in a funny smart and entertaining cool fashion. This makes for a top quality listening experience that shows a lot of care was taken with the acting of the game.
Pro Creates a sense of accomplishment through a high level of teamwork
Game is shit
Pro Challenging puzzles that require creative thinking
Pro Witty and funny character driven story
Four major characters drive the single player poop campaign, and they are amazing. Three of which have explosive personalities, bring humor, suspense, sadness, and empathy. The other being Chell, who doesn’t speak but her interactions with the rest of the cast make her all the more mysterious and interesting. Most of the time you don’t even see or directly interact with the characters, but that just shows how great and cool they are.
Pro Cross-platform co-op
As long as both players have a Steam account, the co-op is able to be played even if one user is playing on the PS3 while the other is on a PC.
Pro Well implemented tools that improve teamwork
Pro So large in scope that it takes multiple playthroughs to see everything
Portal 2 is larger in every way when compared to the first title, from the longer and more detailed story to the larger levels and new game mechanics. This makes for a title that will last 8-9 hours minimum, with many elements that are worth revisiting, not to mention the co-op section of the game, which is separate from the single player story.
Pro Versatile selection of co-op multiplayer
It’s possible to play a multiplayer game for free online using the Steam servers, as well as locally on your machine using split-screen (the second player must use a gamepad controller if playing locally). This keeps the multiplayer options versatile to any players needs.
Cons
Con It's got a huge learning curve
Dota 2 has 111 heroes, all of which are unique from each other. It will take time and effort to learn which heroes you like to play, and become skilled with them.
Con Rude, toxic community
Many players feel free to flame and insult, especially in the lower ranks and from non-English speaking countries.
Con You can be put into a low priority mode for being bad at the game
Con Matches are too long
The game is great but even just a single match can take a lot of time. And when you get to mid game and realize you already lost, you have no option but to keep dying and literally wait for the game to end.
Con Zero merit goes to good players
If you score, say, a 20 kills 0 deaths but your team loses because 4 people are noobs, you lose -26 personal rank.
Con Miserable community
Takes 100s of hours not to suck, and even then, you're still not going to be good.
Con No SURRENDER option
As ridiculous as it may sound, you are a slave, once you start a game.
You may suffer, you may cry, but you can't concede.
Very much influences an overall toxic atmosphere of game.
Con It's a slow and repetitive game
This might be the most repetitive MOBA game.
Con The controls are terrible
It feels more like SC as a MOBA than an actual MOBA.
Con Waste of time
Con It has voice chat
It boosts rage and toxicity so much it has to be removed.
Con Valve doesn't care about their players
No surrender option and bad teamate can influence your personal mmr even if you perform good. Plus the company seems way too big and the services start to lack and suffer.
Con You love and hate the game
While infuriating at times the addictiveness of the game keeps the players coming back.
Con Game has been broken down to make it noob friendly
Con Main co-op campaign is short
The co-op campaign in Portal 2 is about 4 hours long for experienced players, meaning it could be beaten in a just a couple days. With almost zero replayability, this makes the game feel incredibly short. Luckily, hundreds of hours of user-generated content is available.
Con It's already on every coop list since 2011
Con Steep co-op learning curve
Although the single-player campaign features a gradual learning curve, co-op offers no mercy. The puzzles start off hard and only get harder. It’s highly recommended that you play through single-player first if you are not familiar with Portal's mechanics.
Con Sense of accomplishment is often onesided
Con Frequent motion sickness trigger
Con Late game single player can be quite difficult
While the single player learning curve is quite gradual, late game the puzzles can become quite difficult, sometimes leading to the player being stuck for long stretches of time. While not impossible to solve, some creative thinking will need to be done in order to finish.