@hawk and every other DotA hater, you should really read this post:
Ok, here's the whole synergy argument again. Most DotA players I know have validly proved this argument wrong countless times, so I'll do it again right now. DotA does not have direct synergy and is not supposed to. THAT IS A GOOD THING. Direct synergy is boring as hell. Most heroes in DotA have certain spells and abilities that are supposed to give their hero a certain role in gameplay. For example the pandaren brewmaster is a chaser tank, and his role is to chase enemy heroes down the lane, under heavy fire, and escape.
Thunder Clap: A nice slowing nuke with a short cooldown that can be used to keep enemy heroes in range of the Panda's attacks.
Drunken Brawler: A nice combination of effects that allows the Panda to stay alive longer during chases (evasion) and do more damage to his target (critical)
Drunken Haze: A great spell that slows the fleeing enemy and prevents him from turning around and fighting back as soon as you get in range of a tower.
Primal Split: Your escape mechanism. It basically gives you 3 lives with 1500-3000 HP each for a nice long duration. That's lovely because if one of your clones gets stunned, you can still escape with the others.
Now, most of these (all of these) spells are already in WC3. They are supposed to be, the game itself is warcraft themed, and the spells are just adapted to AoS gameplay. People like it like that. DotA isn't about originality, but just the opposite, people are supposed to recognize the simple combinations of spells, to help newbies get adjusted to the game in a few minutes, and to give it a nice, overall Warcraft-ish feel for everyone else. And I'll tell you right now, Icefrog doesn't give two shits about stealing resources, and you can't disrespect the game for that. Bitch all you want about him, I don't care, and neither do the other thousands of people who play DotA regularly.
Why is DotA so popular? Not because the players are misguided or brainwashed, lawl, but because the creators are SMART. They know how to get attention to their map. They know what to put in it to make people want to play it. Most of the complexity or "originality" of other maps turn away people because they don't want to take the time to learn a hundred things just to be able to play the game at all, they want to sit down and start having fun. That's what a game is about. Sure, other maps are great in their own ways, but you have to respect DotA for how far it's came.
I think I just countered every big argument against DotA.