Mass Effect 2

   
Mass Effect 2 was one of the greatest games of 2010, with a tale worth playing through, excellent dialogue trees and very able gameplay. When the game first came out, players who had bought the game new received a free downloadable character named Zaeed, who brought with him a loyalty mission and an extra room in the Normandy that was rather bland. With “Kasumi's Stolen Memory”, Bioware has essentially reused that character's formula, with the important difference being that you have to pay to get it this time around.
 

The DLC gets introduced to you through an email that explains how the “Master Thief”, Kasumi Goto, is waiting for you in the Citadel. Upon inspecting an advertisement, Kasumi reveals herself to you. The enigmatic woman dressed in all black is willing to work for Shepard and Cerberus in return for a large sum of money, and if Shepard helps her out with this personal mission she needs to get done. If you've played Mass Effect 2, this concept will not be new to you, although it did surprise me that the loyalty mission made up the entire body of the downloadable content, completely foregoing some sort of more elaborate mission in which Shepard meets the new member of the squad. The teammates that shipped with the full game had a paired mission structure like that, and it's a bit disappointing that a character you pay for has such limited time to shine.
 
Upon activating the mission, you and Kasumi undertake a stealthy heist in order to steal some data that Miss Goto desperately requires. Shepard gets to don a nice suit and run around a pretty mansion in an attempt to get into the vault. A couple of events go down that I obviously won't spoil, but Stolen Memory flies past, and it does so a little too fast. I was able to finish it within an hour, which makes its 560 MSP price point seem rather steep. Probably the worst part of the DLC is that the story really doesn't get properly resolved. The information you've worked so hard to attain ultimately gets deleted, because it's supposedly too dangerous to get out. The fact that no one actually tells the player what this information entails feels like a really cheap way to avoid having to think of a decent crux. It's a huge disappointment.
 
The DLC itself is a good bit of fun, but it's over so soon, and much like with Zaeed, Kasumi doesn't have in-depth dialogue trees when you've given her a room on the ship, instead offering a couple of quips if you look some objects of interest there . I found it all to be pretty underwhelming, especially since Kasumi herself seems like a character that could potentially be really interesting.
 
If you desperately want more Mass Effect 2, Kasumi's Stolen Memory may hold some merit for you. However, the incredibly short length, coupled with the lack of character depth and the story that fizzes out like a firecracker that's been dropped in a pool, make it hard to recommend as a purchase to people who don't necesssarily crave more of that excellent Bioware RPG. However, even if you do really desire to extend Shepard's adventures by an hour or so, wait until you can get a decent deal on it. It's really not worth the full price.