Enjoyment - 5/10
Difficulty - 3/10

Very short campaign. Originally DLC, this was made as a standalone game to promote the upcoming release of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. Thematically, it is Borderlands DnD. Very grindy to get to max level. There is legitimately no point to get max level except for the trophy, making the whole achievement journey a bit redundant.
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The Borderlands games have always been very weird for me. They can have some of the funniest bits out there but the gameplay hasn’t ever really grabbed me and I think I've finally realized why.

The gunplay has been something that I’ve never really gotten used to or been a fan of. A large majority of the guns in these games have this purposefully chaotic, dogshit ungodly recoil and camera sway while ADSing. As someone who plays shooters by constantly going for headsets and meticulously using ADS as much as possible for the most accuracy, these games don't allow me to do any of that. The devs instead opted to make the shooter experience identical to that of trying to wrangle an out-of-control water hose. There is no enjoyment to be found in the gunplay for me. It just feels like it's chaotic just for the sole purpose of being chaotic. Like it feels like they made it uncontrollable as a joke. You have to just mindlessly hip fire with 80% of the guns because ADS is unusable. I feel like when I'm playing these games I'm putting in the minimum amount of effort possible because the game doesn't want me to actually aim. Except the game DOES want you to aim because so many of these fucking guns shoot projectiles that have a travel time, so unless you want to hit only 10% of the rounds in your mag you have to try to ADS so you have a shot at actually hitting anything. But then ADSing is dogshit so it's a real lose-lose situation. ADSing in these games is almost entirely useless. The only guns that can make any use of it are some of the gun manufacturers and snipers. But even then, trying to ADS with a gun that isn't a sniper has an extremely high chance of being one of the unusable ones. The rest of the arsenal is just hip fire and hope your bullets manage to hit something. I don't think the gunplay is good.

Another thing that I think is really lacking from these games is the ability to upgrade guns. 95% of the guns you pick up off the floor are bad. Whether it's because of the stats or the gimmick, most of the guns you pick up in the game are not good. So to compensate I feel as though you should be able to upgrade guns that you do like and be able to take them further into the game so you don't have to swap it out with something shitty once you outgrow it. Especially since throughout this entire DLC, I was just getting stacks and stacks of cash with literally nothing to use it on. Anything worth actually buying costs Eridium so you just end up collecting 10's of thousands of dollars throughout the game with nothing to spend it on except if you're in desperate need of ammo. But since there are literally thousands of crates scattered every 5 feet in this game you don't even really need to buy ammo. Also, ammo is dirt fucking cheap so having money serves no purpose in this game.

The classes are fine. I wish the character for each class was a bit more visually appealing or enticing. They are all pretty bland to me. The only thing I find offensive about the characters in the Borderland franchise is that you continuously unlock these "skins" for your character during your playthrough but it's nothing more than a palette swap or an arrangement of ugly heads to wear. They really need to step up their character customization in these games.

I know earlier I praised the series for having some of the funniest bits in gaming but this DLC does not age particularly well in that department. There are a LOT of dated internet/gamer memes here and none of them are funny. All of the best bits either come from Handsome Jack or enemies that you're fighting. A lot of the other stuff has just been cringey or dated meta-humor.

The Borderlands games are fine. I realize a lot of people love these games and I don’t think they are bad games. The gunplay however is pretty bad. I think Borderlands is just one of those games that I turn my brain off and play with some buddies but it isn't much more than that. I don't think I would ever take the initiative to play these games on my own because I don't think I could bear it. But it will work as something to keep my monkey brain engaged while shooting the shit.

Playtime: 9 Hours
Score: 8/10

Finally finished this DLC only now in 2022, even though I have replayed Borderlands 2 a dozen times I never finished this DLC, as no matter what level I was going in, the enemies would always be overpowered and I could never beat it. Fast track to now that Tiny Tina Wonderland is releasing, they rereleased this DLC as its own standalone expansion game, which is how I finally played all the way through and beat it.

The standalone version starts you at level 1 and you get 2 skill points per level as opposed to 1, which makes the leveling process much quicker and makes you more equipped to deal with the later enemies, but you can obviously play this normally as part of DLC for the main Borderlands 2 game.

I can finally see why this DLC is the most beloved of the whole series as its really cool to have the Borderlands formula mixed with DnD like roleplaying. The music as well is amazing and evokes fantasy RPG vibes, especially the main town theme. The story for this DLC also serves as the best epilogue to Borderlands 2's main story, and how Tina deals with the consequences of Handsome Jack's actions. The story was overall well done and it was nice to experience as a Borderlands fan.

Only real compliant I have is Handsome Jack who is the villain for this one again, barely gets any great lines or scenes like he did in the base game, and is more an afterthought villain, like they couldn't think of a new one. Also while this is more geared towards the standalone version then the original add on one, the loot progression mostly sucks, as a lot of the guns I picked up weren't all that great and I only picked up 2 legendries in my playthrough, with one being useless and not for my playstyle. But overall, no matter which way you play this, its worth a playthrough!

No matter where you look at it this is a strange cash grab. Gearbox repackaged Assault of Dragon Keep as a standalone to promote Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. The changes here are minimal. Of most note is the new Seraph currency and how everything is scaled so you level twice as fast.

Besides that, it’s the exact same experience, at the very least this is the best dlc from Borderlands 2. The environments are fun and varied and only enhanced by Tina’s narration. I played the whole thing in co-op and it’s still a pretty good time however short it may be

IMPORTANT: The review and rating are NOT meant for the DLC, but for this standalone port.

There's not really much to say besides this being a completely pointless port of Borderlands 2's biggest DLC, and it's simply because the entire premise of said DLC is built upon a big plot point of BL2.

I don't even know for which audience Gearbox intended this for. Most Borderlands fans have already played Assault on Dragon Keep anyways and if you played this port as a complete newcomer to the series you're directly thrown in the middle of something with unfamiliar faces, which you're expected to know already.

Besides these points, the port lacks basic little things from the original DLC, including accessibility features like dubs for different languages (the port is only dubbed in English) and has an unbalanced level curve, since the entire leveling process is sped up by a lot in comparison to the BL2 counterpart to compensate for the lack of skills you'd usually start this DLC with.

TL;DR: As a standalone port the connection to the main story is entirely missing and basic things have been changed to the worse. You're better off just playing the DLC in Borderlands 2 instead.