This is only the first half of the Kidman side of the story, so I probably should review the DLCs together but IDK how the second will play out so whatever.
Anyway, this DLC greatly expands on the story of the main campaign, showing Kidman's side of the events. This is perhaps its biggest strength.
Aesthetics are still top-notch like in the main game and it keeps the surreal feeling of being thrown around to various places while trying to piece together what's going.
Where this DLC falls flat for me is in the gameplay. They completely did away with the more sandbox-ish approach of the main campaign. The resource management is also almost entirely gone. Instead, you're forced to play stealth and you have a very limited amount of tools. Basically, you'll play the game how the developers want you to and you'll like it and shut up.
Sure, they made the stealth better and what not, but I still think stealth in the game mostly worked as part of a whole. You used stealth to avoid conflict and save resources in the main game. Here you use stealth because you're forced to and there's no other way.
This also hurts the exploration, as the only thing to find are some collectibles. If you don't care much about them, you don't have a reason to go off rails. Meanwhile, in the main game you would explore to scavenge every resource you could to be ready for the combat encounters.
Don't get me wrong, I still really liked it. It's just way less fun and interesting to play. The story, aesthetics and style are hard carrying the mid gameplay here. It's bizarre because the main campaign didn't suffer from this lopsided quality.
I also think it's specially lame that it's so stealth heavy because it makes Kidman feel weak as shit compared to Sebastian, even though she's meant to be a badass punk boss bitch. She can't even stealth kill 95% of the time!
(I would give it a 3.75 if I could because 3.5 feels too low but 4.0 feels to high)
TL;DR: survival horror is at its worst when it removes resource management and force you into hide and seek nonsense. DLC story is extremely important for The Evil Within tho so that's good and makes it a must play.
Anyway, this DLC greatly expands on the story of the main campaign, showing Kidman's side of the events. This is perhaps its biggest strength.
Aesthetics are still top-notch like in the main game and it keeps the surreal feeling of being thrown around to various places while trying to piece together what's going.
Where this DLC falls flat for me is in the gameplay. They completely did away with the more sandbox-ish approach of the main campaign. The resource management is also almost entirely gone. Instead, you're forced to play stealth and you have a very limited amount of tools. Basically, you'll play the game how the developers want you to and you'll like it and shut up.
Sure, they made the stealth better and what not, but I still think stealth in the game mostly worked as part of a whole. You used stealth to avoid conflict and save resources in the main game. Here you use stealth because you're forced to and there's no other way.
This also hurts the exploration, as the only thing to find are some collectibles. If you don't care much about them, you don't have a reason to go off rails. Meanwhile, in the main game you would explore to scavenge every resource you could to be ready for the combat encounters.
Don't get me wrong, I still really liked it. It's just way less fun and interesting to play. The story, aesthetics and style are hard carrying the mid gameplay here. It's bizarre because the main campaign didn't suffer from this lopsided quality.
I also think it's specially lame that it's so stealth heavy because it makes Kidman feel weak as shit compared to Sebastian, even though she's meant to be a badass punk boss bitch. She can't even stealth kill 95% of the time!
(I would give it a 3.75 if I could because 3.5 feels too low but 4.0 feels to high)
TL;DR: survival horror is at its worst when it removes resource management and force you into hide and seek nonsense. DLC story is extremely important for The Evil Within tho so that's good and makes it a must play.