Over the next few days, expect a flood of chatter from DoTA/Tower-push map WC3 players. As one of those, and having followed and pre-ordered Demigod before the beta, allow me to pre-empt some of what you're going to hear. 

You are going to get these comparisons because Demigod is the first attempt to monetise a genre that has previously only existed in user-created custom maps. Similar to the attempts to monetise the tower-defense genre with games like Defense Grid and the upcoming title Plants vs Zombies, Demigod is taking ideas that already exist and attempting to turn them into a commercial title. Unfortunately, while Defense Grid and Plants vs Zombies offer a sufficiently different experience to warrant the purchase price, Demigod, upon initial impressions, appears to offer nothing new to existing fans of the genre. 

Demigod is not going to pull in DoTA players. It offers less of what DoTA players enjoy and does not address any of the issues that annoy DoTA players. The selection of heroes is far less and while the skill trees offer a little more variety than you would find for DoTA heroes, they are padded with Skill I, Skill II, Skill III etc, linear progression. Demigod offers less items, a more linear and less refined/interesting system of getting them and the items themselves are also more generic and less interesting. The lack of neutral creeps and the advanced mechanics of DoTA and similar maps reduces the amount of strategy involved, as well as lowers the potential skill ceiling for tournament-level play. While the variety of maps is nice, some of them obviously require far less strategy than others. The open-plane 3v3 map for instance is nothing more than a zerg and I see very little potential for strategy or even skillful micro there. 

I could go on and on, but the point is simple. I understand that GPG have attempted to grab a slice of an emerging genre. That is a sound business strategy and Demigod will no doubt, give some validity to 'Multiplayer Arena Battle Games'. It is accessible and has a shallow learning curve, it is ideal for new players to the genre, who do not have experience with DoTA and similar pushmaps. As it stands though, for the existing playerbase of these type of games, if GPG were looking to take a slice of that particular pie, Demigod will not succeed in doing so. It is too simplistic, too similar and too shallow in all respects and while the polish and style is clearly there and is executed very well, there simply isn't anything new here for genre fans. As a genre fan, I don't think I'm going to be getting my money's worth.