After one of the strangest announcement campaigns ever, in which over 16,000 people played a game that was not officially announced, deadlock is finally public knowledge. Overnight, Valve lifted the embargo on talking about the game, and after a few months in beta, I can finally talk about it freely. But given the current state of the game, I wish they had made some changes beforehand.

For those who don’t know, deadlock is effective Dota2 but with guns and six players on a team. Although it is called a hero shooter by many, it is not really; at its core, it is a MOBA in which there are random characters that shoot. If you go in and Watch Clone, bad times are ahead for you.

But as a MOBA fan, I was pleasantly surprised when I got to play for the first time deadlock and found out how MOBA-like it was. As Dota Fan felt instantly familiar, and the shooting itself is pretty fun. And the last-hitting mechanic, where you can steal XP from enemies by shooting the first bullets that appear, is a great idea. However, it didn’t feel that great and something just wasn’t right.

Then I tried playing Kelvin, a big icy boy who can fire an ice beam that slows and damages enemies. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was considered one of the most overpowered heroes in the game, which may have helped, but after a few hours of play, this was the first time Deadlock was actually fun.

We lost the match, but I finally felt like I had an impact on fights with simple skills that had clear effects, something other characters often lack. I think the arsenal of slows also helped, as speed is a key factor deadlock compared to most other MOBAs. With Kelvin I was unstoppable, even though we lost, and deadlock was fun.

Since then, I’ve met a few more heroes, and while none are nearly as fun as Kelvin, I’m starting to understand how Deadlock works much better. Just like Dotamany of the games you play aren’t that fun, but when you find a great game, it evokes the same emotions that make you want to play another 50 hours to chase that feeling.

Nevertheless, I believe that there are some fundamental problems with deadlock this should have been changed before the game was announced, even if the beta remains invite-only. If a game is even remotely close and heading into the late game, split pushing is far too powerful. With the ability to fly down a pushed lane on the sky rail, you can be at the enemy base in seconds, even if they’re knocking on your door. I’ve lost more games to split pushing than any other strategy.

This is likely due to how difficult the final phase of destroying the base is, if it is defended at all. Since players have to stay in a very small area to damage the final phase of the boss they must kill in the enemy base, some characters can single-handedly drag out the game while others feel useless.

This makes the late game frustrating and often results in games lagging significantly as no one can get close enough to land the killing blows. To fix this, a base redesign is certainly in order at some point, as it often feels like the only way to end a game is to wipe out the entire team and then move in unopposed.

But despite all this, the core of deadlock is still fun. I expect a lot of non-MOBA fans to jump ship very quickly, especially given what many expected from this game. Dota Nerd, I’m having fun and will probably stick with it for the foreseeable future as long as Kelvin doesn’t change.