Unfortunately, the 2nd batch of DLC for 'Fallout 3', 'The Pitt', fails to deliver an engaging quest.
Most people who didn't like the first DLC, 'Operation Anchorage', had a problem with the game being all action and very little RPG. I did think it was fun, but it certainly hurt the product to turn it into a poor man's 'Call Of Duty' instead of sticking with the core gameplay from the original game. 'The Pitt' takes care of that problem by going back to being the type of quest you would find in 'Fallout 3'. It causes another problem of having that quest be somewhat boring, glitchy, and it lacks the effort that we have come to expect from Bethesda.
The storyline of 'The Pitt' revolves around you taking on the task of entering Pittsburgh, PA to try to find a cure to the disease that is plaguing all of the slaves in the town. The town is being run by an overlord type of ruler who makes slaves out of the city's inhabitants. Another problem is that people are getting cancer or turning into mindless savages by all of the radiation in the area. You are hired to go into 'The Pitt', play the role of a slave, find the cure in the overlord's personal quarters and bring it back to the character who gave you the quest.
It sounds like a nice enough quest, but it's actually very standard and boring. And like 'Operation Anchorage', you lose all of your gear at the beginning of the quest. The problem is that here it just feels forced, as opposed to in 'Operation Anchorage'. At any rate, most of the time you will be running around this bleak environment (it actually manages to look more run-down and depressing than the wasteland) doing errands that aren't very exciting. You also get tossed into a gladiator-style pit where you have to fight other slaves to get your freedom. Once again, this feels forced and we have seen it in other games.
Once you get your gear back and get on to the ending of the main quest, the game picks up again. And the beginning of the quest is kinda interesting, so the problem lies in the middle and meat of the DLC. You do have to make a big moral decision at the end of the story, which is always nice. But you have to trudge through some basic & boring stuff in the middle to get to the end.
While there is some decent new loot here to collect, the best has to be the 'Auto Axe'. This has turned into my melee weapon of choice, as it is fun to use and quite powerful. Another annoying thing is that if you want to find everything the DLC has in it, you will have to spend the mind-numbing amount of time it takes to find TONS of steel ingots that are scattered around the map. There is nothing more lazy than making the player run around the map looking for pointless collectables. There is an achievement tied to it, but I chose to pass on it as I hate these sort of blatant attempts at padding the gameplay time.
Speaking of gameplay time, 'The Pitt' is also quite short. It's a little longer than 'Operation Anchorage' and will take you quite a bit longer if you want to collect all of the ingots. If you are just looking to get through the main storyline, you can blow through it in just a few hours. And for the $10 asking price, there should be more here. Especially when you consider the game locked up on me a couple times and I have heard of this DLC causing all sorts of problems when it was first released. I know Bethesda released a patch, but I still ran into issues while playing.
While 'The Pitt' isn't a complete disaster, it isn't a must purchase by any means. I did like the fact that they went back to a more traditional RPG style for this DLC, but the quest isn't really that interesting to begin with. The environment manages to look worse than the wasteland and nobody likes pointless fetch quests. I did like the ending and it was worth playing, but if you aren't a complete 'Fallout 3' freak, then I would pass on this and give 'Broken Steel' or 'Point Lookout' a try.