Devs patch in a launcher. Suddenly, the game won't run and my mods are broken. Fuck this shit, fuck your launcher, stop breaking things for no reason. Fuck you.
Let me preface this with that, by and large, I enjoyed Phantom Liberty and 2.0. The new area is decently designed, the new fixer quests are fun and the new mechanics, while sometimes directly borrowed from existing user mods (hopefully with permission...) are by and large enjoyable. In terms of gameplay, it is a solid experience. Unfortunately, in terms of story, it is not. Phantom Liberty suffers from a dissonance between the player's capabilities and V's actions in prior quests required for the DLC. Little things like changes to the side quests if one, say, fought and won the boxing championship are excellent. Unfortunately, this does not translate to the main questline. In one particular case, you meet with a faction you clashed with previously and have to watch your character make the same mistakes all over again for no reason. There is no option to learn from these mistakes, no option for growth, not even one to opt out. You follow the railroad, whether it makes sense or not. In the main game, the rails made sense. In Phantom Liberty, in many, many choices, there is a real choice missing which severely detracts from the narrative. In other words, while the DLC is superb in terms of performance and gameplay, in terms of story it very much is not. You make exactly one choice in the entire narrative. And that is simply not enough, compared to the myriad of small consequences your actions have in the main game. Phantom Liberty is the inverse of CP 2077's launch, and as a result, just as flawed: Great gameplay, few bugs, sub-par story.
All in all, it's a medicore sequel to a great game. There's plenty of plus-points, and if you're a good and honest hero type character, your playthrough will most likely be more or less enjoyable. However, at release, there are still a few very glaring bugs and some poor decisions that notably detract from the experience and in some cases seriously ruin immersion. The pro's: -The story itself is solid. -Combat has notably improved upon the predecessor. -Some of the puzzles are logical and well-done. The con's: -Quests remain open even after completion. Wether this effects the ending or not is as of yet unknown... -If you steal something with no witnesses, behind closed doors and while in stealth, NPCs will still notice, immediatley accuse you of the crime and go hostile literally right after it happened. While it is possible to work around this, one should not have to. It is a poor mechanic. -Some of the puzzles are literally trial and error, with no inherent logic behind them. Also,bypassing these via IG mechanics may break quests as well. -Killing NPCs often gets you more XP than actually bothering to do their quest. In light of the broken quest system, this may actually be a good thing, but in terms of design, it shouldn't be. As of release, I could, at best, consider the game in beta status.
This expansion was never completely patched, it has very -odd- changes to the merc roster and adds little new to the game that free expansions don't simply do better. In that sense, it's comparable to JA3 in that it's a minimal effort remake of the original game which adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay at all. It is superfluous. I would strongly encourage getting the original game at least, and heading over to the Bear Pit to get the 1.13 patch, which is uniquely customisable in itself, and adds several more layers to gameplay.
There are some fundamental problems with this release fixed by later hitman games. Clumsy interaction with the environment being the main one. For a stealth-based game, the controls are a bit counter-intuitive and other titles, such as thief, simply do it better and more fluidly. The premise itself is sound enough, as the sequels show, but this one doesn't quite get it right. Only worth it as part of a bundle, really.
