Well good for you if you can enjoy that, I would prefer a more complete experience.

But of you can enjoy games without things like Hard mode, enjoy the game without getting the good ending, and screw you with less content even you paid and same amount of money, cannot cheat to move faster unless you pay.

Then more power to you

Well, they can always take picture of that crap, if they want a reminder of how dumb we were, and build something better instead.

Incidentally, I've played Sleeping Dogs without ever knowing there is such DLC. I just looked at its DLC page, saw the long list, and said "Fuck that". And you know what? It turned out to be the best GTA-like games I have ever played, even surpassing GTA itself in many areas. And I didn't purchase a single piece of DLC. I'll probably re-buy the complete edition tho, the game's exceptional.

Actually, Metro: Last Light does contain a proper hard mode. What you're talking about here is Ranger Mode, and yeah, I actually preferred to play the original on Ranger. Know what I did? Waited for GOTY, which came in the form of Enhanced Edition. Funny how that works, isn't it? I'd also like to point out that Ranger Mode most definitely is not how the game was meant to be played in any way.

Yes, I'm sure you can find many more gruesome examples of DLC for games you have never played, and have no chance of actually forming an objective opinion on. And I would agree, some of them are bad - especially Capcom is terrible at this. Nonetheless, I've got a very simple rule - as long as DLC is not in any way referenced in-game and the game is not trying to sell it to me via gameplay faults or prompts which would pop-up in any way in-game (Hello, Dragon Age: Origins!), I'm fine with it. There are games which did some weird shit with DLC, like Dead Space 3, and generally, I try to either avoid such games or pay the lowest price tier possible for them.

In the end tho, for vast majority of games, what you get as the base game is the complete experience and any additional crap is just that - some additional crap. You'll even notice that many games are not even designed with the DLC being there in mind, so your complete edition is going to be inferior by getting tons of items or vehicles you should not have at that point in the game.

You might now ask why am I advocating DLC so much - and my answer would be "because I like the concept." I'm yet to encounter a single piece of DLC which I could not just safely ignore, however I've encountered many pieces of DLC which has enriched my game significantly, either by expanding it in significant way (like the Saxon DLC for King Arthur, adding a new faction, dragons and whatnot, the Disharmony DLC for Endless Space etc.), adding whole new campaigns (DLC for Dishonored) or just allowing me to pick low-price additions that I actually want as opposed to paying for a full expansion pack. DLC is fairly cheap to make, and for an actually creative developer, it opens up space to experiment and try out new ideas in relatively risk-free environment - I can dig that. Sure, there are going to be those who exploit this freedom, as with just about anything in life. But all I need to do is to ignore such instances, and either not purchase entire games if lack of DLC influences them negatively, or just ignore the DLC itself in cases where the base game is sound. I like that developers may now put more work into their popular games, and I do not feel entitled to get their work freely.

People would have to go looking for the pictures so it wouldn't have an impact. If you turned the corner and went, "that is truely ugly" then I think it has more of an impact for not doing it again.

Is it just me or does this seem an odd stance to take on a site that does what it can to help preserve gaming history?

It's a very odd stance. Especially since it shouldn't matter much. If you don't want the old game don't buy it and just ignore the little bit of digital noise when an old game appears on the front page as a new release or appears in a special offer.

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Steam Update: So far no response from steam. I assume they either don't look at stuff on the weekend or maybe wont ever respond, will see next week.

Good news I'm gone through all my bank statements and it looks like all the money spent on those 49 games and DLC has been returned. I guess I have more to spend on GOG at the moment :)

Still on principle I want it all reversed and the games restored to my account. Especially since I got rid of a couple of game discs in the false belief that steam was reliable. Moral of the story is if transactions become stuck on your account during steam sales don't open another account to buy and gift back to yourself. I spent a little over US $100 and that must some how signal fraud which they pickup on months later and reverse everything.

So don't gift too much money and games at once or steam will bite.
That would be amusing if I had gifted the games to friends for Christmas and a few months later steam takes it all away again. Bah Humbug :)

As I said, more power to you.

And your original question is how one get hurt by DLC so I answer you.

Of course not all DLC are bad, there are tons of DLC I would call expansion out there that is worth my money spend.
But you cannot deny there are also quite a number of harmful DLC, like making the game artificially frustrating so you are more incline to spend more on DLC.

Ignoring the staple of Free to Play and MMO, some single player games are starting to adopting the FTP mechanics, like Diablo 3 once crap loot system so you will buy its Auction House items.Proper DLC, or rather, Expansion can be good, but I would rather not call them DLC. Because DLC is what I associate with monetizing mechanics that hurt the gameplay.

Its just our definition of DLC is different, you defination of DLC which has enriched your game significantly, either by expanding it in significant way I call it expansion, those that do not I call it DLC, hence I am against such DLC.

How can you take a long term perspective on something that may or may not happen? And if it does happen, nobody knows what the outcome would be.

Most people don't buy games to worry if they can play them 20 years from now. They want to play them today.

Just out of interest, how does these two relate?

FTP mechanics likes to throw up a grind wall so you pay or grind or cannot advance against impossible boss / level without powerful enough items / skill. Hence you are forced into micro transaction / DLC

At later stage in Diablo 3, they artificially make the loot drop pitiful so you have to spend money in Diablo 3 Auction House micro transaction / DLC for better items or you will keep dying. It was so bad that Blizzard have to remove the auction house and improve the loot system due to massive backlash.

Any DLC / micro transaction that break the game, unless you pay for said DLC is inherently bad. Some devs even stop working on bug fix in favor of new DLC. Yes there are good DLC, but I prefer to call them expansion.

Sure, taking the long-term perspective is hard because the future is not as clear-cut as the present. But which came first: human nature or its rationalisation?

Do you believe that humanity is struggling with problems like climate change because people genuinely sat down and thought it through and said, "I think the probability and long-term impact of climate change does not outweigh the short-term costs required to address it?" It's human nature to overvalue immediate gratification and ignore uncertainties.

The problems in the gaming industry become more clear-cut when we look at gamers as simply a subset of the wider population, with all of the same decision-making foibles.

I guess I'm an edge case. I buy them obsessively then don't have the time and play the occasional one much later.

I'm the same way. And in that regard Steam has not failed me. I started buying games on that service back in 2006. And it's 2015 and if I choose to load that game from back then I can. Will I still not have issues in another 10 years? I have no idea but I don't worry about stuff like that. This isn't about climate change, it's about gaming. So far Steam's track record with me is good, same as GoG. They provide an outlet to buy games and play them. I buy them and I play them (when I can) with no issue. I've had multiple computers and have moved numerous times since Steam came online and I've still had no issues.

I'm not the exception, I'm the average user.

I can confirm the same experience. If the "average" user experienced these problems, there would be no steam. Steam is a company and runs on money and ad revenue. If the average user was having so many problems, steam would be dead, no question. There are not enough games out there that require steam to play them for Steam to have a "corner" on the market. If it's available on steam, it is most likely available somewhere else.
What steam does best is combine all those wacky single-game dev companies together into a large library, which is easy to browse and with a reliable online server.

I've been a Steam member since almost the very beginning, have over 400 games on my account and have never had any issues like that, so I chalk that up to some weird issue with your bank.