Before I get into this let me say that Borderlands is a brilliant game mixing the genres of RPG and shooter into a fun co-op experience. It was my number 1 game of last year. However, I feel Gearbox may have dropped the ball on the 2nd and 3rd DLC.

So Zombie Island of Dr Ned was pretty good. Nice new area, some pretty cool enemies (Were-Skag! In a Straw Boater!) and more of the Borderlands humour. It felt like a true deleted scene, something Gearbox had in the drawer while they were making Borderlands but wasn’t quite there when Randy Pitchford came down and told them to get the thing sent off to be printed to disks. Its just a continuation of all the cool things that made Borderlands good. I wrote my review on the old site and it was reprinted on geeks.co.uk.

Mad Moxi’s Underdome was just a catastrophe. It was just stupid – focusing on the combat which isn’t quite Borderlands best point (its the RPG and loot-lust thats the main bit). On top of that, all of the challenges are not only really, REALLY hard (just ask Giles) but also monotonous. Its simply a hard slog to get through all of the parts in order to get the achievements. I still haven’t gone through this DLC pack due to these reason, and Giles only got through it via godlike patience and by utilising the split screen mode to lower the difficulty. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb also found issues with the pack, giving it two stars out of five and saying:

“These are nice benefits, especially for players who have hit the level cap and are looking for something–anything–that will let them advance. But everything in the Underdome is a total hassle, and that gets old fast.”

So onto the Secret Armoury of General Knox and at first glance it seems to have all the required features – level cap increase, new cars, new guns and more quests. And those parts are pretty good. I’ve only really done the first couple of quests but it was a serious pain. In the first area, before you really seen much, you encounter your first set of new enemies, the Crimsion Assassin’s. These girls were hard to take down in solo play, even as the basic versions. But its the named boss that is among them that is the true pain – I actually had to trap her on a piece of scenery before slamming a load of grenades on top of her to kill her. Later on you have to fight through a road block, which almost made me turn off the game due to the difficulty. In solo, the difficulty is far too high leading to some very frustrating sections. I just hope that co-op is better.

The thing is, the rest of it is actually brilliant. Scooter, one of the best characters from the main game, is back and in the spotlight. In fact the entire thing is funnier even after 5 minutes play. Its just a shame the first taste is just a bit bitter.