This was way longer than I expected.

As is usual for DLCs, it ads way more in difficulty. The plot is pretty entertaining but Hammerhead seems like a boring character to center all these episodes around. Playing through this I was constantly hoping a more classic villain would appear somewhere.

The writing is also more about setting stuff up and the finale of the 3rd episode doesn't realy put all previous events into a satisfying climax.

It's a fine expansion but feels like just a warm-up for the next full game.

A nice bonus included in the remaster, but not worth buying on its own.

Most of the side content in this DLC is just slightly different versions of stuff in the base game. Like challenges, bases and crimes.

The story for this DLC doesn't flow well at all. Characters pop in and out constantly, to the point where it becomes really noticeable.

Screwball is the most annoying character in the entire game and her challenges are annoying too. I did all of her challenges except the stealth ones cause they were super frustrating.

Hammerhead is a really boring villain. All he wants to do in this game is take over the city. Definitely never heard of that one before, incredibly original.

This DLC aims to add more character to the already existing villains that were underdeveloped in SM1, which I appreciated a lot. While it isn't too long, standing at around a 6 hour completion time, it uses this time well as to add to the characters of Hammerhead, Black Cat, and Silver Sabre which I appreciated a lot, as Black Cat especially was incredibly underused in the main game. The story itself was alright, nothing groundbreaking but somewhat enjoyable. Seeing Hammerheads development as a character was interesting. The bonus content while not adding much was also enjoyable. The ultimate scores for screwballs challenges are borderline impossible to get but since 100%ing the game only requires a spectacular score, getting one is definitely manageable and only took me 1 or maybe 2 attempts for each challenge. Crime bases were annoying as compared to the main game there was only one group of enemies, making them incredibly repetitive and boring at times. Their bonus challenges also are awful and specifically the final ones in the last dlc pack are borderline impossible, getting insanely high combos on enemies that are just not fun to fight. The collectibles on offer were also enjoyable to get, and hearing the audio logs around the respective characters was interesting. Overall good experience and doesn't take too long to beat or 100%. Good time killer if you have a weekend spare.

I've made it expressly clear that I adore all the Insomniac Spider-Man games and seeing as how this is effectively just more game I was almost guaranteed to like it.

The plot of this game isn't as emotional as the main game and I'm honeslty pretty happy about that. The main game felt like the big major comic book arc and this DLC felt like it was just meant to be a quick bonus little Spider-Man story where he fights a threat on a much smaller scale. I really appreciate how they got some lesser known villains for this too. (Whens the last time you've seen Hammerhead appear in anything since Spectacular Spider-Man?) Black Cat making her first physical appearance in this series here too and she's voiced by Erica Lindbeck and I have a crush on every character she plays.

Alot of the plot here is mainly just to set up for Spider-Man 2 and to hint at Peter training Miles for his game. I love the JJJ Episode where he has to go to the hospital at the realization that there are two Spider-Men now. It's a very nice cooldown after all the big drama of the main game. Genuinely just a fun, small scale Spider-Man story to tide the fans over between this and Miles Morales and thats all I wanted it to be.

The issues though come from the side content. Overall I think the side content here is a tad better than the main game. Or at the very least its more story focused than most of the main game ones which I think is neat. However they are kinda bullshit sometimes. Like I appreciate the extra challenge but when the bonus rewards are asking me to get a 100 Combo chain against swarms of the most aggresive enemies in the game I kind of start to get pissed off. But that's not even the problem.

Screwball. Enough said.

Also her challenges are actually kind of fun but when you try to go for the Ultimate Score on some of them they are just actual bullshit and they kind of push me from wanting to play them. (which wouldnt be an issue if they weren't based around Screwball and you had to hear her voice during all of them.)

Anyway yeah this DLC is pretty good. Nothing crazy but a fun side story between the much bigger game releases.



Also Black Cat is sexy as fuck.

The City That Never Sleeps is is effectively the title of the season pass of Spider-Man on PS4, comprising the 3 DLC mission sets released for it that together comprise what is more or less a 4th act that follows the main game's 3. It follows Spider-Man taking on a resurging Maggia crime wave led by Hammerhead. It took me about 12 or so hours to get all the trophies in all 3 DLCs, but that, as with the normal game, is a fairly easy task to accomplish compared to many other PS4 games.

Given that this is more or less 3 smaller stories that make up a 4th act, it almost feels like an expansion to the main game or a micro-sequel that reuses the same city. Swinging around the city was still as fun as ever, and the 9 new suits (3 per-DLC) were a very welcome addition to the base game's 29, but it is just more Spider-Man. Despite being shorter, the story is still well told, and I especially liked what they did with Yuri's arc over it. If anything, I kinda wish it had been one large expansion from the beginning instead of 3 smaller storys, as the larger connected narrative feels a little rushed compared to the base game's. The DLC's don't seem to run as well as the base game, though. There were several times where I would flying across the city on my way to another activity and the game would just freeze to load in the area I was going into, and a couple missions had a floating/frozen car that kinda made that mission freak out, where those were never things I encountered in the base game.

The pack of 3 starts out a bit lukewarm, with The Heist having some remarkably aggravating and not fun challenge missions (which were already the worst part of the base game, so making those worse is saying something), on top of some other fairly uninspired side activities and a difficulty level that's a bit of a step down from act 3 of the base game. It really picks up the pace in the 2nd and 3rd bits of the pack though, with Turf Wars and Silver Lining having a very nice difficulty curve across the whole of the TCTNS expansion with some really brutal new enemy types, much better challenge design, and some enemy base missions that will really test just how good a grasp on the combat you have. Even the bosses are damn tough compared to a lot in the main game, with the final boss of the 3rd pack, while not having the atmospheric gravitas that the main game's climax has, it was certainly a far harder boss.

If you were to buy the digital deluxe edition of the game, which is $80 compared to the normal game's $60, then that's a pretty good value proposition as far as I'm concerned. You're getting 33% more game, and you're paying 33% more for it. At $10 a piece separate, it's a bit of a bigger ask, as is the $25 for the season pass, but this is a very easy recommendation if you pick the digital deluxe edition on sale for $50 like it is at the moment of writing this review.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. While it's not exactly a must-play, completely revamped version of the main game's story, it's a very well executed expansion to the base game that is well-priced and has good value for money (which is something many other game's DLC's can't really say these days). Even if you may feel that paying $20-$30 extra bucks on top of the base game's $60 is a bit much, I can say with high confidence that this is gonna be something well worth checking out if and when Spider-Man ever gets a GOTY Edition sometime next year ^w^

For such a fantastic game, I had really mixed feelings about the DLC. On one hand, I felt that the main game had the right amount of content, maybe bordering on too much content. Still, I wanted to try the dlc because it looked interesting. But the more I played it, the more I felt like it was making me hate the game as a whole. I decided to abandon it after finishing "The Heist" section.
I think the DLC needed to be integrated better into the game, rather than being a separate tack on. For example, in Horizon Zero Dawn, the DLC is incorporated into the main game seamlessly.
Still, I could even forgive this. But one, very very simple thing made me abandon this game:

Fucking screwball. Worst most annoying character ever. I couldn't fucking take one more second of her. I know the point of the character is to be annoying, but I don't want to play a game to be annoyed, I want to have fun. It was not fun being forced to experience this grating piece of shit.

I know I'm giving this a pretty harsh star rating, but I don't think this DLC is a positive addition to the game when you could just play SM2 or MM.

Don't waste your time here.

I enjoyed the main game well enough but I didn't care for this much, felt mostly just boring, repetitive and more of the same. I didn't think the story was really interesting enough to justify its existence and the stuff with Black Cat and Yuri I found really underwhelming. I understand why people don't like the Screwball challenges but I found them to be more fun than the crimes or bases, but if you cut Screwball out it wouldn't really change anything.

Least I only paid $10 for it as opposed to $30.

This may say dlc, but it works more so as it's own expansion. roughly 8 hours to beat, about 12 to complete. The DLC boosts more interesting missions for spidey to do as well as a brand new cast of characters to go along with it. It also takes place after the main game, and while I don't think the main game is difficult, the DLC can be. Perhaps it's rust or the set of enemies they throw at you, but you'll be using all your spidey skill to disbatch the enemies quickly. The Screwball missions are probably the newest part to the gameplay featuring a photo bomb mechanic and new ways to play through mission types; thankfully you do not have to get a gold ranking on them, so with minor pratice they are easy to complete and get the trophy for it. Black Cat and Silver Sable are simply amazing in this game and really make the DLC worth the time for when they show up, but Hammerhead still leaves a lot to be desired as a villian. If you are itching for some Spider man after the PS5 trailer, this is not only a good led in to it, but a good amount of content as well.

got this free with a 2 year old expired code that I got with a preowned copy of the game of the year edition, didn't even pay more for it, i chock that one up to god. anyway these dlc's are kinda annoying and gimmicky, and everything about them is worse than the main game, but black cat is a good character, ill only rec this if you 100%'d every other insomniac spiderman game and crave for more spiderman. i was really getting annoyed at how they started to treat difficutly in these dlcs, with marvel just giving you like 40 guys all at once and you will get hit by something, especially with some of the jank attack animations becoming more apparent with more goons on screen, especially punches that slide way further than I think and that lite jet pack guy that does a 90 degree turn faster than a humming bird, screwball is annoying, story sucks, these are kinda jank, with like every 10 minutes I notice some small glitch that happens, but their usually small and dont interfere gameplay.

Insomniac come up with substantial extra content that isn’t just recycled tired busywork challenge: impossible.

Jeez man what a complete and utter waste of time. I will say this; if you liked the original game (and I mean, REALLY liked it), then you’ll like this DLC, as it’s just…more of the original game. It has the same production values as the base game with all the really high quality cutscenes and whatnot so you’re not being skimped on that department. However, as someone who didn’t like the base game, having to play more of it in the most repetitive and unimaginative way isn’t exactly what I’m frothing at the mouth for. None of the stories were interesting (in fact I outright hated the first part with Black Cat) and all of the content presented is more of the same copy pasted open world schlock that I already hated in the first game. More enemy base assaults, more bland collectables to find, more challenge arenas, it’s like they’ve learned absolutely nothing and just went full steam ahead by doubling down. And it’s like this for every single DLC. Sure there are the introductions of like, 1 new enemy type per DLC part but apart from the kinda annoying brutes with miniguns none of them are anything to write home about either. The Screwball challenges have a somewhat interesting spin on them compared to the Taskmaster challenges but I swear the scoring thresholds change on a whim whenever they feel like it. One combat challenge had me get a perfect rank by stringing together a long continuous combo and using photobomb areas whenever I could, but another in part 2 demanded that I only KO people in photobomb sections to maximize score and it didn’t care about combo strings at all, or even if I took damage. Not to mention Screwball as a character is about as endearing as doing a cannonball dive onto a cactus. I swear to god if I have to hear her utter the phrase “photobomb!!!!!!!” one more time, I am personally going to develop an EMP that deletes Twitch off of the internet permanently.

This DLC in general is just exhausting to complete. Nothing interesting or worthwhile happens throughout any of it. Not exactly the best sign when the highlights of this entire package are the off camera phone conversations between Peter and Miles. And I know what you’re gonna say, “well why did you go ahead and play/beat the DLC if you didn’t like it?”. You know what? That’s a great question. I guess maybe it’s just very rare for me to abandon games I don’t like. I usually end up finishing everything I play no matter what.

Hearing Keith Silverstein as Hammerhead was very funny though. It’s literally just his Torbjörn voice except without the Swedish accent.