A Minute Improvement Over a Shaky Base
The expansion pack for SiN is better than the base game, but not by as much as you'd hope. It still has issues with unfairness in the later half, where suddenly health becomes an incredibly rare commodity and the not-so-quick quickload key gets pressed about as often as the fire button. The boss fights at the end of the game are probably the worst the game has to offer-- dodging their attacks requires luck at best. And, yes, there are still barely functioning stealth missions that are, thankfully, somewhat optional.
Still, the levels are constructed at a more consistently adequate quality and the game is definitely less stingy with ammo than the base campaign. There are new weapons such as a flamethrower and a multi-rocket launcher, and John Blade can now dual wield his pistol. The new weapons are fun to use and fit right in for the most part. The unfortunate additions include a new melee weapon that is actually much less effective than the fists, and a plasma crossbow which isn't bad in its own right, but is bound to the "3" key alongside the much more useful shotgun making the shotgun that much harder to switch to quickly.
Levels can be more convoluted at times than in the base game. For example, one level set in a shipping yard had a locked door in it. To find the key card I had to go to a computer terminal in the employee area and look up the names of the personnel and which areas they had access to. I then had to cross reference this information with a computer terminal in the security area (in a separate building) to see where the guard with the key I needed was stationed that night. None of this was hinted at at all and I only figured it out after about an hour of wandering around aimlessly. It's a clever puzzle solved through intuitive logic, sure, and if this were a Deus Ex game or an RPG I'd be all for it. But it's just out of place in what is meant to be a run & gunner.
Like SiN, Wages of SiN is a game that when it works, it works well. Unfortunately neither game works well for the majority of the time spent playing it. But this expansion does work well more often than its predecessor. And that's... something?