The Walking Dead: 400 Days (2013, PS3)

400 Days is a newly released installment of Telltale Games' Walking Dead series. While you're required to own the first episode of Season 1 in order to play 400 Days, you're not required to have completed the season. Rather than focusing on one playable character as Walking Dead: Season 1 did with Lee, 400 Days puts players in control of five separate characters at different points in the zombie outbreak's timeline. The stories of these five characters combine at the end in an epilogue chapter meant to bridge the gap between the previous Telltale episodes and the upcoming second season. While they lack the emotional investment of Season 1's long form storytelling, these short stories are nice little experiments, though some are stronger than others.

Review - Guacamelee DLC: El Diablo's Domain (2013, PS3)

El Diablo's Domain is the second downloadable content released for Guacamelee, one of my early choices for 2013's best game of the year. It introduces new content to the game that's largely aimed at players who have already gotten good at it, but like the main game, is balanced very fairly. I spent about three hours playing through this DLC, so its $3 price tag felt perfect.

Review - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Blade Wolf DLC (2013, PS3)

The latest DLC expansion for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a side story explaining what robo dog sidekick Blade Wolf went through before the events of the main game. Like the Jetsteam Sam DLC, it attempts to add depth to a few of the existing characters of the Revengeance universe, this time focusing on Blade Wolf and PMC Desperado Enforcement's Mistral. This story also introduces Khamsin, a previously unseen member of Desperado. Like the Jetstream Sam DLC, there are a few collectables to find, some VR Missions to play (which must be accessed form within the DLC's story mode), and a lot of recycled content. Blade Wolf does at least play very differently from either Raiden or Sam.

Review - Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake DLC (PS3, 2013)

Released in March, Year of the Snake is the final story DLC for Sleeping Dogs, following October's horror side story Nightmare in North Point and December's Zodiac Tournament. Year of the Snake serves as a follow-up to the story of the main game, showing Wei Shen readjusting to life as a regular Hong Kong police officer. At about two and a half hours long, Year of the Snake is both more entertaining and more varied than the disappointing Nightmare in North Point.

Review - Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (PS3, 2012)

Nightmare in North Point is a DLC side story for Sleeping Dogs released for Halloween 2012. It takes the existing game's world, fills it with blue fog, and unleashes living deads all over the place. Between this DLC, Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare, Infamous 2's Festival of Blood, and Yakuza's Dead Souls, "Let's take an existing game world and add monsters to it" has become a bit of a trend. Unfortunately, Nightmare in North Point is a pretty weak adventure plagued equally by an uninteresting script and repetitive gameplay.

Review - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Jetstream DLC (PS3, 2013)

Jetstream is the second piece of DLC released for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. While the previous DLC simply added another batch of Virtual Reality missions, Jetstream actually provides new story content, telling players how Samuel "Jetstream Sam" Rodrigues came to be employed by the Desperado PMC. Sam plays differently enough from Raiden to make combat feel fresh, but unfortunately, the majority of the DLC feels like a rehash.

Review - Mass Effect 3: Citadel (PS3, 2013)

Citadel is the final story-driven DLC release for Mass Effect 3 and marks the official end of the game's development. It follows From Ashes, an almost essential DLC that adds an important new character, Leviathan, which I found to be a mixed bag, and Omega, which had some fun combat but often terrible writing and wasn't worth the price. After being massively let down by Omega, I wasn't expecting much from Citadel. Thankfully, Bioware proved me wrong; Citadel is the fullest, most well made DLC content in the entire Mass Effect series.

Review - Mass Effect 3: Omega

Three months after the release of the Leviathan DLC, Bioware took another shot at expanding the story of Mass Effect 3. This time, players join forces with Asari crime boss Aria to help her take back her turf, the sleazy asteroid mining colony Omega, from Cerberus forces. Smartly, this DLC focuses on a smaller part of the universe, which makes it more understandable that unlike Leviathan, its plot really shouldn't affect the universe at large. This DLC is also much more combat-centric.

Review - Mass Effect 3: Leviathan

 
When done right, using downloadable content to expand a game's world and story is a pretty great feature of the current console generation. It's a way to keep players coming back to a game long after release, and in some of the better examples feels like a complete, short form game of its own. Dark Souls' Artorias of the Abyss is probably my favorite example of this being done right.

Mass Effect 3 started off on the wrong foot when it came to DLC; the day the game launched, players could buy From Ashes, a DLC mission that added a new permanent squad mate, Javik. The mission was fun and Javik adds a lot to the game if you keep him in your party, but having to pay $10 on top of the game you just dropped $60 on in order to complete your squad just feels sleazy. This wasn't content later made and released after the game had been running for a while, it was right there on day one, letting you know that without purchasing it, you're not getting the full experience.

Review - Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss DLC

When From Software announced a PC port of their hit action RPG Dark Souls, they also announced that new content would be added to the game, as well as a few balance changes to existing content. The PC port was released in August 2012, and this new content remained exclusive to the PC version for a couple of months before being released on PS3 and Xbox 360 as a $15 downloadable content pack, Artorias of the Abyss. While that's a little more than I generally like to spend on DLC, this expansion pack is among the best I've seen in a modern game and was well worth the wait and the price.

This review is meant solely to cover the new content introduced in the Artorias of the Abyss DLC, and thus is intended for players already familiar with Dark Souls. For a more general review of the main game, please see my previous review.