Right so lets start out with the facts.

1. for those with the plat hit version your going to shell out an additional 400 points
2. costs 400 points (5 USD)
3. provides about 2-4 hours additional content


If you happen to have gotten the plat hits version (like me) let me explain point one. There appears to be a coding difference between the first DLC (bringing down the sky) from the bonus CD and the downloadable version on XBL that makes the new DLC freak out and not load into the game. In short, you have to delete the DLC that came with the game, download the one from XBL and then the new DLC will display. In short if you really want to use this new DLC it will cost you a total of 800 points and in my opinion the DLC is just not worth that expense.

In this DLC is basically a two room station, a “virtual reality generator” (in actuality the room is loaded along with the loading screen so no cool “the matrix is loading around you” effect) that gives you access to five combat areas. Three achivements and a apartment that you can win that you will only visit once.

Okay so there are four types of missions you can run. Hunt, Capture, Survive and Time.

Hunt: Kill as many enemies in x amount of time. Each kill gives you a few extra seconds but don’t let that fool you, the way the enemies spawn will see too it that eventually you will run out of time.

Capture: If the name doesn’t clue you in its in essence capture the flag. You run to a spot, stand in it for a few seconds while taking fire and repeat about three or four more times.

Survive: Similar to hunt but only in reverse. Wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies come out of no where to kill you. Eventually the game starts spawning the hardest enemies the game has in an huge waves. The kicker though is that some areas of the offered maps have natural bottlenecks so you and your team can hold off the horde indefinitely. My personal best is well over five minutes until I got bored, then I found out that I just needed to hold the enemies off for about two and a half minutes.

Time: Kill X number of enemies in the least amount of time possible. This one is the most annoying of the rest as the spawn in a certain order every time, so trying a different route just isn’t possible. If your aim is not particularly dead center for 90% of the time you will quickly find that weapon mods will make or break your time.

The three achivements:

New Sheriff in Town - Completing a mission in first place will give you the achievement.
Best of the Best - Completing all twelve missions will give you the achievement.

Undisputed - Completing the admirals super deadly missions will give you the achievement.

After you come out of your first “virtual mission” you overhear the typical “bigoted” “there’s no way a human beat my scores, you cheated!” BS that your character cant help but resist showing the idiot how wrong he is. The challenge is that you can get into first place in all eight of the first missions. If you win you get to take one of his weapons (which you can get while in a fight in the real game….). Once you do that the guy acts all tough and begrudgingly gives you a weapon of choice.

Talking to the admiral allows you to do the other four missions, all of the same flavor but at of course a harder difficulty. Once you beat them all at first place you unlock the final mission. The admiral actually will give you something of a “it’s a game but its real now!” speech, as the safetys are not yet implemented (saving before you go into this mission might be a good idea). At first the admiral isn’t interested in a top agent dieing on his watch but a little goading and making a bet wins him over. If you win you get his retirement home (its less enchanting then it sounds), if you lose, you die, reload and get to do it again.

This one actually has a bit of a plot to it but was perhaps the most easiest to beat. You need to run into the middle of the map, grab some info, then fight off the infinitely respawning enemy for five minutes. The admiral mentions there isn’t much cover but if you retreat back to where you spawned you will see that you can take advantage of an automatic turret that will at least soften the enemies for you. You can actually sit there with your team shooting at the enemy as the AI is so bad they are all preoccupied with getting the shotgun head shot, meaning you can create a chokepoint and just shoot at them as they come into view. After five minutes the mission is over.

You’re the new bad ass of the station. The admiral gives you a thumbs up, tells you that you’ve earned the right to call him by his first name and hands you the eyes to the apartment that he never wanted in the first place.

This is where it just feels like a slap to the face. The apartment is on a desert planet, has a radio, a medgel and grenade spawning container and you can contact a convoy for weapons. You would think that this might be a cool way to get some cutting edge tools but the price is very cost prohibitive and if that wasn’t bad enough each ship randomly generate the item it will give you. In short you just got a lousy hovel that you will never visit again and a high cost slot machine (the “best” items cost 200,000 credits). Sure if you are smart you can beat the system and simply reload the game every time you don’t like what you get from the convoy, but its really just not worth it as the level difference isn’t that high up (hell half the time I was getting stuff lower then what I already could get).

The whole thing seems like a border line scam to get 5-10 more bucks out of their player base for content that barely justifies it. If you have the normal game and 400 points to blow go ahead, have fun, if you can. If you have the plat hits, don’t bother. Really, just don’t.