I assume it will be a one time buy type deal, I can only hope so. I don't really think the whole microtransactions thing works for this genre... at all.

Competition is a good thing.

Somewhat disagree with your first point. IceFrog is honestly a better designer than anyone working at Riot; he churns out **** like Invoker, Clockwerk, PotM, Batrider, etc. and takes community suggestions for awesome stuff like Puck. But I do agree that the overall metagame of DotA has stagnated since icefrog took over, which is why I quit - but then, the same thing is starting to happen with LoL.

Totally agree on the second point. IceFrog does a lot of **** that makes him hard to like as a person. But I respect his work on DotA, and LoL would probably not have the playerbase it does if not for IceFrog's continued development which seriously raised DotA's popularity (and by association set LoL up for the same popularity - huge amount of LoL players are former DotA players or friends of former DotA players)

The real question is will it have spectator mode?

What does being shady have to do with being a good game designer?

Considering he solo balances the entire game I'd expect him to be pretty busy.

TF2 is a nice change of pace because it's a unique FPS while still being fun. CS setup the best first person shooter genre ever popular for years only to be then replaced with CoD ripoffs. My god do I hate CoD4 and MW2.

L4D I would have to argue is Valve's best game since the original Half-Life. Episode 1 sucked worse than HL2. Episode 2 was alright though.

Such as?

HL2 was considered one of the best games of the year (possibly even all time). What the hell did you find disappointing about it?

my body is ready