Dota 2

Dota 2 gives you all 120-plus heroes immediately and sells nothing that touches the game. That decision is why its competitive scene has the integrity it does, and it also sets the tone: this is a game that assumes you will do the work. Denying your own creeps, pulling neutral camps, tracking enemy item timings, none of it is optional at any level anyone would call competent.

The result is a strategy game with genuinely enormous depth and a reputation for hostility that is not entirely undeserved. A match runs 35 to 50 minutes and cannot be abandoned without penalty, so the commitment is real. What you get for it is the highest strategic ceiling in the genre and a game that has stayed mechanically relevant for over a decade.