How you react to the new Gears of War 2: Dark Corners downloadable content will depends a lot on what you're looking for. To the many still playing online, Dark Corners is essentially a map pack, containing seven battle zones to splatter with blood and guts over Xbox Live. The added campaign chapter, called Road to Ruin, is just a bonus. If you're someone who's been looking forward to trying out more story-driven Gears 2 content and are considering Road to Ruin to be the primary draw here, well you're not going to be a happy gamer if you drop 1200 Microsoft Points (15 USD) to get it.

Let's start with the campaign chapter. It launches from the Gears 2 main menu from an option labeled 'Deleted Scene.' Before digging into the mission, a message from Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski plays explaining how this content was cut out from the campaign while Gears 2 was still in production, and after playing it's not too hard to see why. Road to Ruin takes place right after the incident with Maria in the Locust underground, just as Dom and Marcus are attempting to break into Nexus. Though there are a few sequences of dialogue included as you progress through and an appearance by a character franchise fans will recognize, it doesn't really do much to enhance the overall narrative experience.

The gameplay is also a little odd, since before running through the new content you're given the option to either proceed normally (kill everything you see), or to strap on some Theron armor and try to sneak past Locust guards. It plays just as strangely as it sounds. Though there aren't vision cones or anything like that on the Locust troops, Marcus and Dom will need to keep their distance since the Locust can smell them. You'll actually see the freakish guards sniffing around if you're within a certain proximity. Even so, the gameplay here feels cumbersome and underdeveloped, as it's simply a matter of waiting for Locust guards to continue on their patrol paths until there's an opening to rumble past or in some cases to take advantage of overly obvious environmental distractions. Charles Onyett