While a main quest line is offered, you’re not specifically beholden to it. You’re more than welcome to go around the rest of the area, exploring, gathering new items, and generally enjoying a more relaxed game (aside from the difficult fights, anyway) compared to previous DLC packs. While the main quest in Point Lookout will last you several hours on its own, it’s the rest of the content that really justifies the price tag.

That said, there are some problems worth noting. Some are more hilarious than really bad, like finding a fishing pole as loot in a mailbox. Others are more serious, such as part of the main quest glitching; you’ll have to either reload an earlier save, or knock a plot-essential NPC around with some explosives until he picks himself up and resumes what he should be doing. I also had a system hard-lock occur when I tried to use VATS while in mid-air, though I was unable to reproduce this and only lost a few minutes of play. Additionally, one of the new weapons takes up about a fifth of your screen since its in-game model is mostly vertical when it had no need to be. Along with the in-game cost just to get to Point Lookout’s locales and the tough enemies, it’s easy to see how this DLC pack could have gone very awry.

Fortunately, it didn’t let us down. While this experience definitely has a different feel and flavor to it from the rest of Fallout 3, it’s still quite fun. A huge environment, lots of content, and some entertaining new weapons all add up to the best DLC pack yet, and one that’s easily worth your $10/800 Microsoft Points.