Borderlands: Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot

This piece of Borderlands DLC is a repetitive, boring-as-shit arena grind. You see, it’s a co-op expansion where you’re placed in one of three areas to fight different foes, under conditions such as slowly draining health, low gravity, or only your pistols being effective.

Each section has between five and 25 rounds. Each round is made up of five waves, which take between two and five minutes. Said waves are always a normal wave, a ‘gun’ wave (full of gunners), a horde wave (lots of melee enemies), a badass wave (a selection of super-powerful foes) and a boss wave.

Mad Moxxi’s is an overly-long, samey and furiously frustrating mess. All you do is kill the same kind of enemies in the same kind of arenas for hours at a time, and any death sends you back to the beginning of a round. And there’s no loot or experience from each kill (removing loot from Borderlands is as stupid as not breathing), and you’ve seen almost the whole expansion in the first hour.

With no save points throughout matches that can take two hours to complete, the entire thing feels like a hopeless, boring slog. At best, this DLC is thoughtless, unoriginal and for those who simply must have two extra skill points. At worst, it’s a waste of time and money, and poor form by Gearbox.

Feb 9, 2010