At least not inherently. They're somewhat complicated in DOTA, if you are unable to read (it happens).

 The point of recipes is to allow a player to carry over items he gets early game into items late-game without needing to sell the old and buy new, which puts the player at a disadvantage vs someone else who's just been saving for a big late game item unless items sold sell at exactly the same price at which they are bought. If while playing a Demigod game you've ever though "Hmm, I can buy this 2.4K ring now, but I can keep playing a bit longer without items and get the better-in-every-way 5.8K ring later" then it proves the itemization as it is now is counterintuitive and wrong, as it rewards NOT playing the item game.

 So recipes do have a use, but most people don't want them in game because they think of the way DOTA does it and are afraid it'l be complicated. But it doesn't have to be.

 Here's some ways recipes can work very simply and still fill their role or making early items translate into late game items:

 Combines. Let's say early game you buy some boots of +15% move speed, and then a bit later some boots of +500 armor. You can then buy a "combination" which would cost a token amount of gold and merge your two boot items into a single boot item with the stats of both.

 This would work with any two boots. So obviously, all boots bought straight from the shop would have 1 or 2 stats and a similar starting cost, then combined ones 3~4. It would also allow players to tailor their items to themselves somewhat. If someone wants to play Regulus with lots of mines, they'l pick a lot of regen and some damage stats. If someone wants to be a harrasing Regulus, they'l combine movement speed and attack speed.

The only rule governing these recipes would be 2 base items from the same shop = 1 combined item. Anyone can understand this, and you don't need to remember "hundreds of complicated recipes".

Another way would be upgrades. You'd have "sets" of each items. An armor with just armor, one with life and regen, one with thorns and life.

You'd have the first ranks, Decent Armor of Armor, Decent Armor of Life, Decent Armor of Thorns. Then you'd upgrade them as the game goes on, maybe one or two times to Good Armor of... and then Great Armor of... Simply increasing the amount of each stats the items start off with.

 An idea can be good but the implementation wrong. The idea of recipes is great, the implimentation, at least in DotA (according the the people here) needs help. So let's give it some help.