Gears of War 2 (Dark Corners and All Fronts DLC)

http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/07/28/gears-of-war-all-fronts-collection-and-dark-corners-multiplayer-map-pack.aspx

Those who keep up with this blog know my feelings about DLC on Live. I think you're paying too much for too little - especially when DLC packs are comprised of nothing but new multiplayer maps.

First off, I'm a cheap bastard. That's an established fact. I watch for sales and wait months, even years for items to drop in price. My geek appetites are veracious and have limited funding. I never thought I'd say this, but the All Fronts DLC pack, a collection of all previous Gears 2 downloadable content, including the new Dark Corners expansion (more on that below), is actually quite a deal at twenty dollars...if you haven't purchased any of the other Gears 2 DLC packs in the last few months.

All Fronts is more in line with a traditional expansion pack for a shooter in the pre-Live days, which typically had around 5 hours of new single-player content, a handful of new weapons and baddies, and several new multiplayer maps/features. I doubt the deleted chapter, Road to Ruin, lasts even an hour - but combined with 19 new multiplayer maps, All Fronts is, in Live terms, a steal for new Gears 2 players or gamers who quickly burned out on the game and jumped ship to another shooter.

On the other hand, I'm disappointed to see that the Dark Corners pack, 7 new mutliplayer maps and the aforementioned Road to Ruin, is priced at a whopping fifteen bucks - the first time, to my knowledge, that a single DLC pack has been priced above the standard ten dollar price-point. I imagine that fan reaction to this one is going to be negative, though I seriously doubt it will stop people from buying it. I'm not going to pick up the All Fronts pack (I don't play Gears 2 multiplayer), but I'm going to follow this one closely. Hopefully, this is the first and last time we see DLC of this size priced above ten dollars.