DOTA 2 - The IceFrog's 2011

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Dota 2, a massive sequel for one of the most played games in the world.

Coming to the PC & Mac in 2011, Dota 2 promises to take the unique blend of online RTS and RPG action that has made Dota popular with tens of millions of gamers and expand upon it in every way.

 
Confirmed: Dota 2 At Gamescom, Out 2011:On the one hand this isn’t too much of a surprise, after how earnestly the rumour mill has been grinding lately. On the other – well, given how good Valve are at fooling folk, official confirmation that their competitive strategy game Dota 2 will indeed be on public display at Gamescom later this month is a pretty big deal. Oh yeah, and they reckon the game itself will be released “later this year.” Woo!
Dota 2 (an entirely lower case name appears to be the official take, incidentally, suggesting it’s perhaps not entirely an acronym for Defence of the Ancients any more) won’t be playable as such, but we’ll get to see “the 16 best Dota teams in the world” compete in a “double elimination playoff format” tournament that they’re calling The International. The teams in question are listed here. Oh yes: the winning bunch will walk home with $1 million. Good grief. Oh, why didn’t I become a pro-gamer? Other than, y’know, the complete lack of ability and all that.
So it’ll be staking its claim as a competitive game for the trueblue Dota hardcore, but what about the rest of us? Hopefully we’ll get some sense of that at Gamescom, which runs in Cologone, Germany for 17-21 August.
Oh, and Valve reveal that this has been with some elements of the Dota community for a little while already:
“The International is the first public Dota 2 event and will give the tens of millions of gamers playing Dota around the world their first look at the new game,” said Gabe Newell, president and founder of Valve. “I have had the good fortune to watch the competitors as they prepare for the tournament, and the level of play is extraordinary.”
Exciting! Is this a straight sequel, or will Dota 2 be to DotA as Team Fortress 2 was to Team Fortress? Answers -and new images, hopefully – finally await, in a mere two and a half weeks. 

DotA 2 Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card


DotA 2 Recommended System Requirements:
OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz
Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card


According to one of the members of DotA 2 staff, in case you can run Alien Swarm, you will be able to run DotA 2 since both games require same System specs

SCREENSHOTS