1. It's way too linear. The only real variation you are allowed is the order in which you solve the current issues of your three fellow prisoners. Basically, you are simply propelled from one situation to the next.
2. There is no joy of exploration. In general, deviating from whatever path you "should" take puts you into a toxic cloud which will kill you in a few seconds, or within range of a "speaker" which will set off the bomb in your neck collar within a few seconds. A lot of what makes Fallout fun and different from other RPGs is the "open" nature of the game-- you can explore the world and, with careful advance preparation, generally stay alive. Dead Money lacks both of these things.
3. Too many "lock-and-key" puzzles combined with "zap-- you're dead" penalties. In the main game-- and most of the mods-- careful planning and caution will make you safer. In the main game, I rarely got killed. Unfortunately, in Dead Money, you often have to sprint through a toxic gas cloud (keep in mind, you have only a few seconds before death) or an area where your collar threatens to go off (even less time). In a few cases, you will find a speaker that can be destroyed, stopping the countdown on your collar. In general though, the speaker may be indestructable and/or unfindable... so you have to sprint to just the right location-- often being severely weakened by the toxic clouds-- to where the beeping from your collar stops, with no good way to recon it out in advance. Thus, you end up trying various sprints, ending in collar explosion and death, at which of which you try something slightly different, again ending in collar explosion and death, resulting in multiple game restarts, until you stumble upon just the right thing to do to avoid the "zap-- you're dead!" conclusion. In general, the things that kill you build up so fast that there is no time to look around, except by accepting death again and again, and looking over part of the area in the second or two you have before death. One of these situations might be interesting, but they're all throughout the mod... and, from a player's perspective, it's tedious, not fun.


I hope the next mod, due later this month, is: 1) less linear; 2) more amenable to exploration and careful planning; and, 3) has less emphasis on "lock and key" situation resolutions.

DLC?

I liked it but thats just me...