I think all of that stuff is meant to directly intergrate you into their internet content. I don't think there would be a reason to visit it if you didn't have an internet connection. I'm sure that normal DLC will, however, be available to play offline.

There is no reason why you should have to be online to play DLC you have already downloaded that is on your hard drive.. All that would do is piss a lot of people off.

It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game.

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

" Yeah, I know the Cerberus stuff is only accessable through an internet connection, so I guess the weekend after the game comes out I could hook my 360 up to Live then check that stuff out and download any new content then I could play it offline.  I know dlc can be played offline, but for some reason I remeber Oblivion's dlc packs not loading when I wasn't connected, and I always have my 360 online so I just wasn't sure. "

" @Nobbyworks said:

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

I could, did it this morning. Zaeed was still in the place he ususally is. Even started up his loyalty mission. "

Yeah this sucks, can't even load my game.

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

" @Nobbyworks said:

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

No, sorry. I turned off my wireless and even though Cerberus wasn't up, I could still load up a game. "

why not just make the 3rd one a co-op 4 player game? your friends can jump into your game with their characters and so on? we have MMO's so why not this? I would love to play a single player RPG like this with friends. Would be a lot more fun to me than an MMO for sure.

" @Nobbyworks said:

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

No, sorry. I turned off my wireless and even though Cerberus wasn't up, I could still load up a game. "

" why not just make the 3rd one a co-op 4 player game? your friends can jump into your game with their characters and so on? we have MMO's so why not this? I would love to play a single player RPG like this with friends. Would be a lot more fun to me than an MMO for sure. "

" @Demyx said:

" @Nobbyworks said:

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

No, sorry. I turned off my wireless and even though Cerberus wasn't up, I could still load up a game. "

When I boot up the game it says something to the effect of "unable to connect to the cerberus network. The following content could not be loaded: Zaeed, Normandy Crash Site"  When I try to load my game it says: "The selected save cannot be loaded. The following downloaded content is missing: Normandy Crash Site, Zaeed."  For people who CAN load their saves... 1) Are you on XBox or PC, and 2) Are you disabling internet before you boot up the game? "

" @Nobbyworks said:

" @Demyx said:

" @Nobbyworks said:

" It's not just that you can't access the DLC when you're offline. Any saved game that uses the DLC cannot be loaded if you're offline.
 
So let's say you downloaded Zaeed, and he's in your party. It's a Sunday. You decide to spend your day off playing ME2. For whatever reason, you have no internet. You could have Mass Effect on a laptop on vacation, with no wifi access. Or maybe your cable/dsl provider has an outage. If for any reason you don't have internet access you can't even load your saved game. "

No, sorry. I turned off my wireless and even though Cerberus wasn't up, I could still load up a game. "

When I boot up the game it says something to the effect of "unable to connect to the cerberus network. The following content could not be loaded: Zaeed, Normandy Crash Site"  When I try to load my game it says: "The selected save cannot be loaded. The following downloaded content is missing: Normandy Crash Site, Zaeed."  For people who CAN load their saves... 1) Are you on XBox or PC, and 2) Are you disabling internet before you boot up the game? "

Was steam running offline? That might've been it. I have the PC version through steam as well. I got that the network was unable to connect, but everything else loaded fine. I manually switched off my wireless. "

" There is no reason why you should have to be online to play DLC you have already downloaded that is on your hard drive.. All that would do is piss a lot of people off. "

" @Vito_Raliffe said:

" There is no reason why you should have to be online to play DLC you have already downloaded that is on your hard drive.. All that would do is piss a lot of people off. "

The cerberus network is not dlc, it is a vehicle by which more dlc will be delivered.  As far as I know I don't have to be online to access my dlc but then it would actually be more inconvenient for me to disconnect myself from the net to find out.  If you haven't already, make sure your ea/bioware account is connected to your psn/xbl user names. "

" @Vito_Raliffe said:

" There is no reason why you should have to be online to play DLC you have already downloaded that is on your hard drive.. All that would do is piss a lot of people off. "

The cerberus network is not dlc, it is a vehicle by which more dlc will be delivered.  As far as I know I don't have to be online to access my dlc but then it would actually be more inconvenient for me to disconnect myself from the net to find out.  If you haven't already, make sure your ea/bioware account is connected to your psn/xbl user names. "

My brother has been playing the game offline (because we don't have the most stable internet connection, and being disconected while playing kicks you back to the main menu)
And he's using the Zaeed and Normandy DLC along with ALL of the pre-order bonus items, so I don't believe the information here is true.
 
However, if you download content on another Xbox, even with your own HDD the liscence will be saved to that Xbox.  So if you take it back to your own console, the DLC will need to be verified online before you're able to use it, which is what I assume is causing the problems here.  The only way to fix this, is to transfer the liscences to your other Xbox, however they will only let you do that a few times, you can't just keep transfering them back and forth.
 
But if it helps, none of the DLC is really necessary.  You wouldn't be missing much by not having it.

" @Nobbyworks:  Once you've downloaded the DLC it works just fine offline. I've played several times without being connected, and had no problems. "