Red Dead Redemption

Like the Legends and Killers before it, Liars and Cheats gives the multiplayer portion of Red Dead Redemption a huge breeze of raining additions. Unlike Legends and Killers before it, Liars and Cheats can at least be seen as DLC that could potentially be well worth the money. It'll give you new character skins from the main game, aswell as a new weapon, but that's only the beginning. 

There's new hideouts added to free roam, some of which pit you against the creatures of the wild rather than wild west gun slingers. There's a new competitive mode called Stronghold, which has two teams of eight fighting in a classical attack and defend style game. There's horse races, online poker, online liars dice, poker, poker and poker! 
 
Without a doubt does Liars and Cheats definitely deliver where the price count is concerned, but not every piece of this DLC will have you assured to feel that way. 
 
Starting with the positive though, the addition of online Poker and Liars Dice is most definitely the highlight of the package. Sure you're not playing with real money, but it's still yet another way for you gain all that more experience to reaching those far reaching Legendary ranks. You access poker and liars dice just like every other mode of play; in free roam you press select to have the ever growing menu of modes to choose from, with poker and liars dice being closer to the bottom. You may also attempt to start a game by selecting one of the icons located in the free roam world, but like everything else you try to initiate this way it won't be finding you much in the way of willing players. 
 

Should you then lose a few hundred bob (money... excuse my British slang) you may then opt to enter a Stronghold match. As mentioned previously, it's RDR's take on the classic Attack and Defend mode. Two teams made up of different gangs, one to defend their territory the other to attack, amidst a decent number of RDR's notable locations: Such as Fort Mercer, the upper class town of Blackwater and the lawless liaison that is Thieves Landing. The attackers are given a set number of checkpoints to take over while of course the defenders are to stop them. The environments are mixed up with some additions such as conveniently placed turrets and cannons, or a safe which'll reward the player who cracked it with this DLC's new weapon the Explosive Rifle. 
 
Leading to the explosive rifle is where it starts to falter into a bit of a half and half. The weapon is extremely satisfying to use, but how often you get to use it--and how easy it is to lose it--can really detract the enjoyment and make it seem like more of a wasteful hassle to obtain. In Stronghold players can procure it through hacking safes, but in free roam it is only collected from beating one of the new hideouts (The gang hideouts, not animals). If you're in a posse it'll be rewarded to whoever left with the highest score, but soloing the hideout will assure you your very own explosive rifle! 
As you'd expect, such a powerful weapon will then force you to go through alot of regulations to keep a hold of it. For starters, it has a very small ammo count of five shots which is fair, with new ammunition only being gathered from again beating one of the new Gang Hideouts. Should you die, however, even accidentally from a fall, you will lose it. It can feel like such a hard blow to your patience when you fight through the hideout, potentially competing against other players, only to then lose from maybe slipping down a cliff. Even heading into the Outfitter where you customise your character, mount and title will strip your hard earned firearm out of your inventory.
 
That also then directs me to the hideouts themselves, which are where the DLC is looking more like a complete waste. Five new gang hideouts with four new animal hideouts, though none of them are much in the way of fun. They all devolve into more of the typical take down horde of enemies to be greeted with another horde, and then another, and then another and then ending against a 'boss' character who more often than not is flinging unlimited molotovs/dynamite sticks at you. The enemies themselves have been greatly beefed up with much more powerful weapons and with the requirements for their death taking far too many bullets to be much in the way of satisfying. Seriously, some enemies have withstood a whole barrel of shotgun rounds only for them to lose their hat.  
What's worse the experience you gain isn't even that substantial, so if you simply plan to spam hideouts for the leveling up, these hideouts are easy to tick off. Oh sure, you may be awarded with an explosive rifle, bu-Oh crap a level 50 player headshotted me. 
 
The wildlife hideouts are even worse; they'll have you fight against a series of either wolves, boars, cougars or bobcats depending on which one you've begun, eventually leading to a more powerful variant of the habitat to kill. Problem is that these wildlife hideouts award you even less experience than the gang hideouts, and such ones like the Cougar hideout are just as infuriating as you'd expect. No explosive rifle either so it really begs the question as to' Why bother?'. 
 

What you have left after all that is some genuinely fun Horse Racing (No stagecoachs sadly), but with barely any players to be found. Once you do get into a match however, it can be quite a thrill to race alongside another player shooting at each other sparingly--with you having such a low ammo count to make sure you can't just keep relying on a shotgun round to the horses backside to take the lead. Then of course there's still the character skins. And well, they're what you'd expect: Skins. They do at least cover alot of ground from the main game with such favourites as Marshal Johnson, Irish, Dutch Van Der Lind and even Professor MacDougal. They all come complete with their own unique taunts and can give you some legitimate glee to roam around as some of your favourite characters from the story. 
 
To sum up this DLC would be to appropriately give it the label of a ''Mixed Bag''. It has some very fun content that helps keep the multiplayer strong, though some of it will still feel like a complete waste. No matter how you look at it, it's still a pricey purchase, and one that you should definitely run through yourself and decide just whether what the content you like the look of is worth.