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Borderlands was easily one of the best original games of 2009, if not the best original games of 2009 (read our review of Borderlands here). Shortly after release, the first DLC hit the digital stores, and while it didn’t take the Borderlands experience to new heights (read our review of the first DLC here), it did offer lots of sweet action for all the fans.

The second DLC, called “Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot”, has a few extra incentives for players. For one, it’s not possible to increase your level cap past the 50 in the original game (and the first DLC). However, that might be the biggest upside of the DLC, because while you can move past level 50, the DLC doesn’t play out like regular Borderlands, instead, it relies on the horde principle, like in Gears of War 2 and the Zombies of World At War, putting up the player against hordes of enemies. What’s worse, the enemies, once slaughtered, don’t drop any loot nor do you even get XP for killing them — you get XP at the end of each “horde”.

The whole concept is basically to include arena mode in Borderlands, and while doing that, Borderlands inevitably loses what made Borderlands so great in the first place, the tactics, the XP, the loot hunting and so on — there’s very little of that in Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot. And while the game is stylish and the character of Mad Moxxi is wonderful as one might expect of developer Gearbox and Borderlands, it’s simply not enough to justify spending $10 on the DLC. Essentially, all you’ll be doing is killing wave after wave of enemies, and it gets near impossible to beat them if you have more players with you. It’s very repetitive, and offers none of the advantages that Borderlands usually does. There are mini-bosses after each horde, and while those are interesting in and of themselves, it’s a tedious progress to reach them, slaying enemy after enemy, and not getting anything for it.

In all, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot is still Borderlands, it looks like it, feels like it, but unfortunately, doesn’t really play like it, and takes away most of what made Borderlands fun and addictive in the first place. And for $10, it’s a bit too much.

The Good:
Great art style

The Bad:
Repetitive combat
Strides away from the Borderlands experience
Feels overpriced

Overall score: 5/10

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