As the title suggests I've been heavily debating buying the season pass for this game since it came out. I overall enjoy the MP despite some of its flaws but I'm not so sure I'll be playing it this fall. On the other hand it's only 30 bucks and I'm kinda an achievement whore so I might end up buying it either way.

My biggest concern is if the maps will split up the community (which it will obviously as not everyone will have them) and I'll never get the chance to play in them like in Bioshock 2 multiplayer. I don't want to buy content I can't play. So are others taking the plunge? Give me a reason to throw away 30 dollars as I already have 1900 MS points sitting in my account at the moment.

I guess nobody knows if it's worth it yet because the content isn't here. I'd say that if you're on the fence (which it sounds like you definitely are) DON'T buy the season pass. The season passes we've seen so far only save you money is you savour each piece of content. The Saints Row the Third pass was balls. I bought the Gears of War 3 pass and, while I got my money's worth, I was still kinda bummed out because they gave the maps out for free eventually anyway.

My personal case for not bothering even if you love the game - Mortal Kombat. I love Mortal Kombat and had a definite interest in the DLC characters. But I didn't bite on the pass. They didn't announce who the fighters would be and you were and you were only saving £3.50 over buying them individually when they were released. As it turns out, by the time the third and fourth characters were released, I'd moved on and didn't play much anymore. I bought the first two and enjoyed them but ended up only spending 800 points (I think it was) instead of 1200. For me, it worked out well that I hadn't splashed on the pass. I figured that if, all those months later, I was still loving the game, I wouldn't mind spending that extra £3.50. The risk was spending the extra money up front for something I wasn't sure if I'd want.

Sorry that was long winded. I'm totally behind passes when you adore the game in the long term. I was all over the LA Noire pass (I devoured that content) and the Gears pass (I play Gears multiplayer constantly and I know that the community sticks with it and plays until the next game comes out). With something unknown like Max Payne 3 multiplayer, I'd advise just getting the content as it's released, if you want it. You won't be spending that much more if you eventually decide to buy them all and, hey, the purchases will be so spread out that it won't really matter to you.

My plan is to wait and see how well they support the multiplayer community with balances and updates. It's always fun at the beginning of a game's lifespan when everyone's just goofing around learning the ropes, but then people inevitably over time start camping with overpowered weapons or abusing spawn traps.

That they've already lined up a bunch of content in advance has me somewhat confident they intend to keep things active at least for the summer. I'm mainly curious about the New York Minute co-op pack - sounds like it will let you play arcade mode with another buddy as Passos, but will they make entirely new levels or just retread the story?

Put that money in the bank and by the time fall rolls around you'll have enough interest to pay for all of it a la carte if you really wanted to. Season passes are kind of a rip-off designed to get you to shell out for something before you know if it's good or not.

Thanks for the responses and with that advice I'll buy them separately based on if they are good or not. Honestly, you all make good points and for an extra $15 dollars savings (if I decided to buy all the DLC) it's not worth it to blindly throw money at an assortment of multiplayer DLC packs I'm not sure I'll play.

@Getz said:

Put that money in the bank and by the time fall rolls around you'll have enough interest to pay for all of it a la carte if you really wanted to. Season passes are kind of a rip-off designed to get you to shell out for something before you know if it's good or not.

Amen

I don't even know how to get the seasons pass cause I am getting the game on Steam, I've looked around and it is mentioned on the rockstar max Payne 3 site that there IS some sort of season pass for PC users, or at least PC is mentioned when talking about it, but obviously no links or any more info on it is displayed from them. Frustrating.

I agree most of the season pass stuff for games has been really dumb, the only incentive being you save something close to 10% on the overall price... it should be significantly better for people willing to pay that large chunk up front... like 50% off with some extra goodies or something, it is after all a big gamble with your money, more so that a simple game pre-order (way easier to tell if you'll enjoy a game). DLC tends to be costumes and maps and other stuff like that, I really only put ANY value on DLC if it's actual story content or something, or story woven into the maps like in that one mode of this game.

I'm with DJJoeJoe on this one: I only care about story or single-player DLC. New characters, weapons, and maps for multiplayer? I couldn't care less. I feel like they could do some single player stuff with Passos, parallel to Max's story (play as him during the stadium or fighting through the Imperial Palace Hotel, etc), but I suspect all of the DLC will be multiplayer oriented.

As someone who bought the Saints Row season pass, I'd say wait and see. If the content ends up good, then you can always buy it.

Is the DLC out yet? If not then why are you askng this question?

@Lebensbaum said:

I'm mainly curious about the New York Minute co-op pack - sounds like it will let you play arcade mode with another buddy as Passos, but will they make entirely new levels or just retread the story?

Being able to co-op even just the story levels where Max is partnered up with Passos would make me pay extra of that DLC! But even some 'Horde' levels would probably make me consider about buying it.

Chances are good that at least half of the DLC won't be worth it, so you can just buy the other half if it is good an still save a few bucks.

Saint's Row 3 completely turned me off of Season Pass crap, plus I could care less about the multiplayer part of the game.

@Getz said:

Put that money in the bank and by the time fall rolls around you'll have enough interest to pay for all of it a la carte if you really wanted to. Season passes are kind of a rip-off designed to get you to shell out for something before you know if it's good or not.

Amen