Batman Arkham City: Harley's Revenge DLC Review

Arkham City was one of the very best games of 2011 and it's taken almost a year for Rocksteady to put out the first bit of single-player dlc. Sure there have been challenge arenas and costume packs, but anyone who has played the two Batman games from Rocksteady know that they excel at storytelling and so it was with great excitement I downloaded Harley's Revenge. Harley's Revenge takes place after the main story, and since you can access at anytime from the main menu it is highly suggested you complete Arkham City before reading this review or playing the aforementioned dlc. *Major Spoilers Below*

Harley's Revenge is a sort of epilogue to Arkham City. With the Joker and Talia dead Batman has gone into hiding and all his closest friends are worried. But Batman is forced to return to Arkham City when Harley kidnaps some police officers and taunts Batman into confronting her. What is interesting about this dlc is that for the majority of its run time you actually play as Robin with Batman having been successfully captured by Harley. Robin plays very similarly to Batman but his bo staff and a few unique items make him different enough to force a slight change in strategy. The main problem with this dlc is threefold its short, its linear and its $10. Put those three things together and its pretty hard to recommend this to anyone who isn't a hardcore fan. The dlc took me about 2 hours to complete and even though the time spent was fun and engaging thanks to the combat system and an interesting story premise, its that $10 hurdle that's tough to overlook.

Harley's Revenge should have been one in a myriad of Arkham City single-player dlc. Unfortunately it looks to be the first and last. Though the epilogue is fitting and maintains the high-bar set by Rocksteady in the main game its simply too short to have any impact. Harley's voice actress really steals the show with her grieving madness with the loss of Mr. J and made me forget about her typical shrilling voice. Playing as Robin is pretty cool, his character specific gadgets are a fun addition to the already fantastic combat but he is unfortunately restricted to a confined series of linear rooms (no open world for him). This dlc is just not enough for the asking price its as simply as that, the story extension is neat and the Robin segments are a nice change of pace, but overall this dlc is too little to late.

(3 out of 5)