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"There are those that believe that life here...began out there. That there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive-- somewhere beyond the heavens. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."
And so ends the saga of the First Cylon War, the most mysterious and previously completely untold event in the modern BSG franchise. This DLC brings Deadlock to a fitting conclusion and is a must-own for any veteran of the game. The storytelling, while at times confusing, cliche, and tries a bit too hard to emulate BSG's mystery and drama at times, is a lot tighter and is an improvement over most, if not all of the other campaign DLCs. Characters are a lot more compelling, and I found myself surprisingly attached to them, despite the (sometimes) questionable voice acting and often bombastic, over-dramatic dialogue. It seems this game's story is at its best when it leans more heavily on previously established plot threads from the rest of the franchise. It's not perfect, and I still question some of the writer's decisions, but what's here is still great fun to experience for the first time.
This also, in my opinion, has some of the best and most unique campaign missions in the entire game, which have very well thought out gimmicks, themes, and objectives. However, I can't help but wish that they pushed further. The campaign itself is only 8 missions, and rather than jumping right in, the story takes around four or five levels to actually get going. A lot of them are the standard go-here-kill-this-fleet or go-here-and-defend/board-this-staton/ship type of missions that you would've played before. It's not bad per se, but it feels sort of like the campaign was a bit padded out--or that perhaps they felt like they only had enough content for a small number of missions, but wanted it to feel longer. I would've also liked to see some more varied locational setpieces or backdrops for maps, as a lack of variation of aesthetics in maps continues to remain one of my biggest issues with the game. How cool would it have been, for example, to sling torpedoes across the horizon, high in Caprica's atmosphere--or to battle directly above the rings of a gas giant; the reflections of your ships visible on them below you? Again, they've scratched the surface with this type of stuff --they have setpieces like Ragnar and Caprica and the unnamed ice planet seen during Operation Raptor Talon, but it never feels like they push it as far as they could've.
That being said, this is still a great DLC and is a good conclusion to a game supported wholeheartedly for three years after launch. The dev's passion for the BSG franchise is felt keenly, and it's easy to see that this was a game for fans, by fans.
So get out there and kick some shiny toaster ass. Good hunting, commander!