If you don't like Dead Money. You ain't doin' it right.
Fallout is intended to be about scrounging, scrapping, stealing, lying, playing dirty, whatever it takes to survive. Dead money takes this idea and cranks it up to 11.
I would not recommend playing Dead Money [DM] on a low (under 20) level character unless you have your skills focused very well, a jack of all trades and a master of none would probably not have much fun in DM. As a side note New Vegas [NV] in general is much harder on character development than Fallout 3 [F3] and the challenges in DM really amplify this.
One harder aspect of DM is that you have to finally care about your companions (take that people who all rolled a 1 charisma) because you have to keep them on their feet.
That plus a red mist that damages you while you are in it, maybe makes DM seem like its too tough. I'll take a second to point out I played through Dead Money on Normal with Hardcore enabled. That said the whole point of the Fallout world, living in the nuclear wasteland, is that life sucks and its hard to survive so you should do whatever it takes, eat lots of junk food, drink water from toilets, make bombs out of propane tanks, fight smart! Fight dirty! Stay Alive!
DM does a fantastic job of giving you exactly what you need, guns, ammo, food, but also throws challenges in your path, much harder enemies, lots of booby traps, the red mist and more.
DM is a much more linear progression than NV on the whole but there are still multiple ways of playing. Sneaking, guns blazing, science heavy, speech heavy, lockpick heavy, companion heavy ect... but yes new areas do open up in a somewhat linear progression, however theres still tons of "side" buildings with nooks and crannies to explore. Don't be afraid to take some damage to run through the red mist, or even in it for a few seconds. Just use careful planning so that you can heal up once you are out of it.
If all else fails, do what RPG PC gamers should all already be good at, exploit the quicksave, quickload buttons. Going to say this one more time, F3 = Cake Walk. DM = Some what hard.
The areas are creepy and spooky and keep you always on edge. The new monsters are vicious and smart. The new companions are a great range of different personalities and skill sets that can pair with different player characters very well.
For me the bottom line is DM is a cheap very enjoyable DLC that adds easily 10 hours of gameplay, and thats a huge amount from a DLC. Fable 3 DLCs each add like 1-2 hours and cost as much or more. Plus you can easily get more enjoyment out of DM by trying to get all the achivements and goals or just by trying to figure out how to get as many gold bars [inside joke, play and you'll see] as possible.
It can be easy to stop having fun when the going gets tough, its a major flaw in any game. If you are winning it feels too easy if you are losing it feels too tough. Take a break, maybe start a new game and really plan out your play style and skill points right from the get go, or just hammer on that quickload button and throw yourself back in. Best of luck.
Sorry theres no pictures in this review its 2:47am, and it takes me a long time to get the pictures to word wrap correctly so I'm just not going to do it for this one. :- )
