I would say this is barely approvable, by no means a good map. But still fairly adequete.
Good Points
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- Terrain was decent, its no masterpiece but definitely a refreshing break from the standard 3 lane DotAesque thing most AOS have.
- I love the empty sidelanes that allow backstabs and ambushes quite easily.
- The presentation although not fancy, is easily understood. Nice touches such as the time indicator when creeps spawn, K/D Ratio indicator, hero names that are not ripped from melee. Basically, nice touches in the minor details.
- The items were somewhat basic, but at least each one had some sort of function instead of just existing for stats.
Bad Points
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- You only get your abilities at level 2. Sure its a nice feature that deviates from standard wc3 gameplay, but it means your literally left autoattacking until the second level
- Since all classes share the same set of abilities based on book, theres little difference between what hero you pick other than very minor stats differences. See the next point.
- Mounted Heroes (Raider and Farseer) have turn rates so absurdly slow it actually makes an impact on their gameplay. Retreating is extremely annoying on these characters. On the other hand I noticed they had higher movespeed than other characters, I cant say for sure if it evens out, but it is sure annoying.
- Map generally suffers from passive hero syndrome. Creeps inflict more damage to each other than hero attacks, creeps waves generally arrive just after the earlier wave has died. Towers are extremely powerful.
In other words, the difference between actually playing the game and afking next to your creeps is almost 0. Until level 5ish. And thats not really soon
- Some abilties have very strange properties, Charge cannot be used within a certain range (4 yards). However it is not stated how far is 4 yards nor is there anything to tell you, the hero is too far away. Until youve actualy tried casting, which is too late and rather annoying.
- Abilties also dont scale in any way. Pheonix Wake deals about half of an enemies health when first learned, thats a huge amount, but quite quickly looses its power.
- Basically the abilities are all really messed up. Disables with massive range, Sfx that dont show correctly how far an ability travels.
Minor Details
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- The command to change spellbooks could shorter.
From "- change book summoning etc." to something like "B1 etc." 1,2,3 and so on being the books.
- The so called "fountain" is a little priest in the base corner. Hes really hard to notice and most players have no idea thats where you go to restore hp.
The fact that the horde uses an alliance priest is also kinda strange
Possible Changes
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- I would have a good look through the heroes, decide what the difference in each you want to be gameplay wise.
- I would polish all the abilties and make them more user friendly.
- I would speed up the game and make it less passive so that heroes arent irrelevant for the first 5 levels.
The Verdict
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- There are some neat features in this AOS that make it appear special at the surface level, but personally its the same gameplay as most others in the genre. And to be honest, its not anywhere near the best.