DOA or "dead on arrival" traditionally is the official terminology used by the trauma center where a victim is received. Trauma centers (emergency rooms) are where the official pronouncement (declaration) of death is made by the attending physician, and it is pronounced at the time the victim arrives at the facility. Hence "dead on arrival".
When victims are "pronounced dead at the scene", then they died before they could begin transportation from the location where they are found.
Similarly DOA is an emphatic slang expression that is often used to describe objects, documents, and concepts:
An object is DOA when it is deemed not functional at the time it is received.
An idea or concept is DOA when it fails to receive acceptance while it is in its nascent state or condition.
A document (such as a legislative bill) is DOA when it is received but deemed by the recipient to be unacceptable (for whatever reason).
When something is DOA, it is hopeless from the onset. So when I hear that someone's love life is DOA, I would assume that means it got of to a (very) bad beginning.
Both the term DOA or the expression "dead on arrival" are used so frequently in the American news (mostly in the literal sense but frequently in the figurative sense), that I would expect most people here to understand its figurative meaning. I have never run across someone who looked confused when the term was used in front of them.