My thoughts on DLC are mixed. For the most part I tend to either buy only what are meaninful expansions for the game, or in the case of micro-packs to support a publisher/project and hopefully encourage more games of a sort that I like. There are exceptions but that's the general principle of the thing.
I've actually wound up buying TWO copies of everything for "Dragon Age: Origins" between the PC and my rarely-played 360 version, largely because I'm a huge RPG fan and wanted to support what I see as the development of serious RPGs.
I purchused the Mass Effect 2 DLC, as support for Bioware because I feel any company can make a mistake time and again.
I've also purchused a lot of DLC for various JRPGs from small companies in hopes that it will get them to release more in the US.
Truthfully though I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that purchusing DLC is becoming counter productive because paying for it doesn't lead to more quality work, but actually seems to be encouraging more and more low-quality money grabs.
See, to me an expansion pack *should* include a substantial amount of content for the game, for a fraction of the price due to the fact that it's typically using assets from the main game itself. I look at some of the first expansions: "Forge Of Virtue" and "The Silver Seed" for Ultima 7/pt 2 as a sort of guideline for what expansions should be. Today it seems we're increasingly seeing people demanding $10-$15 for content that only gives a couple of hours of play time. The few full sized expansion packs that have been released retail for almost the same price as a whole new game. This is to say nothing of packs that include minimal content like an item or three which I have mostly seen as more akin to giving a donation to a company to encourage development than actually buying something.
With DLC being developed alongside the games themselves, it is also increasingly becoming a situation where it's not so much "additional" content as much as an extra fee for part of the product. The design processes seemingly including desicians on what bits can be broken off of a main game and sold seperatly right from the beginning.
This is to say nothing of some of the JRPGs out there where while at one point I'd buy some of these packs due to the fact that I felt I was supporting relatively obscure companies releasing a niche product. Today it's increasingly seeming that those packs are needed to really play/enjoy the game, doing things like taking a grind-heavy genere, increasing it to the umpteenth dimension, and then charging money for stuff that simply allows you to reduce the grinding back down to a relatively normal level....
These are general sentiments. I have no real issue with the basic idea of DLC but I think it's getting out of control. A matter of what started as a nice idea to be able to expand a game and increase play value quickly and cheaply, or donate to a favorite company for a couple of perks, being tainted by increasingly greedy and corperate mentalities into a vampire-like cash grab. I'm a capitolist, and understand game companies are out to make money, however I think there is a differance between making a profit and pushing the exploitation of your customers as far as they can bear.
Bioware is NOT the worst offender when it comes to DLC (far from it), however I do confess to some wariness about how much DLC is doubtlessly being already planned for "Dragon Age 2". Also while they might not be the worst offenders overall, I do tend to think that the DLC advertisement put into your camp in "Origins" showed a complete lack of class and good taste.
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