I don't know if it was just my low expectations, due to all the criticism it received, or if I'm just easily amused…
I bought Dead Money and Honest Hearts at the same time, figuring that I'll play thru Dead Money sometime just because I paid for it, but I mostly wanted its unique items and extra 5 levels to the cap.
I don't know if it was just my low expectations, due to all the criticism it received, or if I'm just easily amused… but I rather enjoyed Dead Money… start to end.
I enjoyed the atmosphere and the level design most of all, the villa on the outskirts of the casino itself was my favorite part. Risking sprinting thru the poisonous gasses to see if there's anything useful on the other side, jumping from those Spanish Villa style tiled roofs to see if you can reach the next one because you are certain there's some loot around the corner of the next roof (I only missed one of Dean's hidden stashes!) and trying to search every corner of the maze created by the Villa and its surrounding areas… great fun.
Dead Money, for me, had a very old school "dungeon crawler" RPG feel to it… ahh, the flashbacks.
The poisonous gas and traps did have me swearing a bit at times, but didn't bother me much… just keep your eyes open. The DLC could have done with a few more enemy types… enjoyed the story and the ending. All that effort and you can only manage to walk off with a small fraction of the treasure… that was both annoying and awesome at the same time.
Dead Money had its flaws, but was worth the money for me as it kept me busy for a while. Seriously, for what you pay for it, I think it's worth every cent. Started playing Honest Hearts a little while back and enjoying that as well so far… and I bought Old World Blues so long as well. I think the older gamers like myself would enjoy Dead Money a bit more than the newer generations, it wasn't awe inspiringly awesome, but had a nice old school feel to it and was more than worth the few $'s it cost.