Fuck Epic.

So, good news first. First on x360a to get to rank 25 in Gears 2, meaning I'm first in all the x360a clubs for that game so far. The bad news is, I'm not even close to being done with the DLC. Rank 100 is either .75 or 4 times the length of the original Seriously... in Gears 1. I mean, what the hell.

I know I'll enjoy playing Gears 2 for the most part, and I'm actually glad there's a chance for me to play with friends and get achievements at the same time, but this is ridiculous. The original 1000 was relatively pain-free, and it only took about 40 hours not including the leave-your-box-on Party Like It's 1999 achievement. The first wave of DLC was only annoying in that it cost $10 for three maps that were out a month after the game.

But now this DLC... fuck. I should be able to choose what I put on my card. Granted, I would have played Gears 2 at launch if it came with this achievement, but this is setting a horrible precendent. I was planning on playing Unreal Tournament III, another Epic game, but now I'm not going to. Who's to say they won't come out with a ridiculous DLC pack later and force me to replay it?

And the bullshit goes on. Mirror's Edge's 250 requires you to be nearly perfect in all the time trials, including the original ones, and is far harder than the original 1000, which you could pretty much skate through. Halo 3 has forced you to have impossible achievements on your card for what will be almost a year.

Rock Band is doing it right, with an extremely elegant solution. Mark the DLC as a seperate game entirely. This way, I can choose whether or not DLC will go on my card. You'll sell less DLC, obviously, but you'd be selling more games because people like me won't be afraid to put them on my card in the first place.

EA, Epic, and Bungie are ruining a great thing. So is Microsoft, for letting them get away with it. At least a few months ago, you could say "Oh, that game's at 1250 now, so it'll never get DLC again." Not anymore.