Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

An expansion for Skyrim you say? Tell me more!

More content for a game that can already take over hundreds of hours of your life? Keep going!

You can play as a Vampire? Sounds a bit like that horrible Twilight nonsense but I'm still listening!

Werewolf perks! Are you sure it's not just "Elder Scrolls: Twilight" pack?

Vampires used to be cool… there are some great novels (and I can recommend the Necroscope and Vampire World series by Brian Lumley) and some superb films with Vampires and the whole Vampire Lore… all of which have been crushed by the horrendous Twilight series which have made anyone not a teenage girl or a confused teenage boy shudder at the very thought of venturing into the world of the blood sucking un-dead.

In fairness the Werewolf element is an added extra, something to finally encourage the player to use the Werewolf transformation for something other than it being an easy way to increase your Bounty in each of the 9 strongholds which is all I ever used it for.

The DLC also adds one of the most annoying Achievements I've ever encountered in an RPG after the "open every chest" Achievement in Lost Odyssey… in this case it's killing a Legendary Dragon, and they only start to appear once your character has hit Level 78… which requires you to level up virtually all your skill trees to the very high 90's which can become a real grind.

It doesn't take long for the DLC to kick in, you'll be approached by a member of the Dawnguard to try and recruit you in their war against Vampires, which introduces you to a new type of weapon, the Crossbow, and sets you off to explore newly added and created locations which are all added to your map when relevant.

Initially your told that a group of Vampires has descended on a location in a desperate search for something… your task find out what they're looking for… and when you find it… the expansion really kicks in.

Whether you decide to fight with the Dawnguard or to accept the offer to join forces with the Vampire Lord Harkon is up to you, what you'll get is more of the same cave searching, dungeon crawling adventure that made you put 150+ hours into the game in the first place.

The game adds a couple of new shouts (well at least one "Soul Tear" which can be unlocked later in the DLC, I'm not sure whether the "Drain Vitality" is in the original game but I found the first word in the first real quest in the expansion itself so I'm guessing this is a new one) and a few new armour sets, and a few more things to boot.

I don't know whether the "Lost to the Ages" quest was in the original game, it may be the case but the Achievement for its completion was added in the expansion so what you're really getting here is an expansion and a bit of a patch.

Like the main quest the whole expansion quest line is not overly long, if you bomb through the main quest line it could probably be done in 2 or 3 hours as there is only really one sub-quest that takes any time and that's more annoying than difficult.

The new locations are occasionally staggering, the hidden glade with the Moths is spectacular, the frozen figures in another look great and, while it may be clichéd, when they break free of their confinement it's impressive stuff indeed… but there does seem to be a Vampire overload… outside the realms of the expansion I took on two minor quests and they were both Vampire related, this may be coincidence but it is possible to overdo the blood sucking theme.

At least the "Cure" quest is a damn site easier than in Oblivion… but looking back having completed the expansion what you have here is an over-priced expansion and a patch that you've had to pay to download… for serious fans only.