[JemyM]

Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
Shepherd comes over some good leads on the whereabouts of the Shadow Broker, a mysterious character that appeared in the first and the second game. Liara T'Soni, the blue female alien who used to be your companion in the first game, is determined to find him no matter what. Of course Shepherd joins in on the ride.

Storywise LotSB promises a continuation of the story of Liara, possibly including a continuation of the romance subplot from the first game. It also offers the player to find out more about the mysterious Shadow Broker. Finally LotSB is the first DLC that begins to bridge the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3. Fans celebrate!

Unlike the majority of all DLC's out there, LotSB do not rehash maps, meaning that each area you are going to visit is crafted anew, including some great new scenery that actually caused me to stop for a moment to absorb. Compare this to the bonus content made for Dragon Age that often simply reuses maps and locations you already been to, with nothing more than minor tweaks. This is good, because the DLC is completely linear unlike Overlord.

The same cannot be said about the opposition, which is the same old enter-room, foes-pour-in. The foes of the same kind we have seen in earlier games, just with a different name and recolored armor. Well, there are exceptions but I won't spoil them.

When it comes to gameplay there are a couple of new mechanics, including a car-chase, although one that I found to be extremely short. It was over before I even got the hang on how the chase was supposed to work. It did made me laugh though since there are some hillarious dialogue going on while driving, and it reminded me about the speeder chase in Star Wars Episode 2. You will also have Liara back as your companion during the mission, including her ability Stasis that I do not think have been in ME2 before. Liara could handle herself quite well. I can add that I played the game on Insanity and found that Kasumi was an awesome companion. We have been able to shoot at explosive cannisters before to damage nearby foes, but in this DLC we also have pieces of the environment that can be shot at repeatidly, which made some fights feel more tactical. There are also bossfights that proved to be interesting challenges.

The mission is not all there is to this DLC. After beating the mission you get the access to a new area, with plenty of new features that I will not spoil here, lets just say that it reveals a lot that will probably be relevant in future DLC's or ME3. I will mention though, that we now finally have a legit way of respecing our companions.

So much for content, is the DLC any good? LotSB is one of Biowares stronger attempts at building a DLC that is like a mini-expansion, which is what a DLC should be. I cannot say that the story or the gameplay had as many surprises as Overlord did, but I can easily put LotSB on 2nd place and fans of ME who plan to play ME3 would be stupid to not check this one out.