Fallout 3: The Pitt

I had a great time with The Pitt, and it single-handedly reinvigorated my interest in Bethesda's masterpiece. It's what DLC should be: good value, interesting, exciting and a concentration of what is best about the game it's expanding upon.

Flaws aside, The Pitt is still an enjoyable experience. This more story driven DLC is an enjoyable diversion from the main Fallout 3 plot. And unlike Operation: Anchorage, when you’ve completed your mission your time in The Pitt isn’t over.

Whilst a bit short, The Pitt has a solid story, plenty of action and will stay with you to return whenever you wish.

The Pitt is a much more fleshed-out expansion than Operation: Anchorage could ever hope to be. Still, its four-or-so-hour campaign does not have as many choices as the original game, making it feel limited in some aspects. However, even after considering these issues, your trip to post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh is worth the ten dollars (or 800 Microsoft Points).

The quality experience in The Pitt makes Operation Anchorage feel like even more of a misstep than it might really have been. Both offer some interesting additions to the main game and definitely provide additional play value in different ways. The Pitt is certainly the superior of the two in most regards. Get over the fact it was initially launched as a broken mess, this is one expansion Fallout 3 fans will truly appreciate.

The Pitt undoubtedly provides far more value for money than its predecessor, with around four solid hours of entertainment for the first run-through, and probably at least double that if you feel motivated to explore the quest from all the intriguing angles it throws up.

It's a real shame that The Pitt's technical issues tarnished the release of an otherwise entertaining piece of content. In an alternate world where this DLC cruised through quality assurance with flying colors, I'd be giving this five stars.

The Pitt is one of the more impressive Fallout 3 add-on missions that, despite its problems, should not be missed.

The Pitt is a worthy addition to the Fallout 3 name, but its enjoyable setting and storyline ends far too quickly for it to have any impact.

If you fully explore the world, and don’t use game guides to find all 100 Ingots, you have more than four hours of game time here. The storyline is much better, and because of all the choices that can be made throughout the game, the replay value alone gives this game extra score. In my honest opinion, any Fallout 3 owner must get this DLC.

Whilst not the best instance of DLC we’ve ever seen, The Pitt serves as a faithful expansion and further raises hopes for the final instalment of the series, and for post-release content in general.

Whether The Pitt is worth your money sort of depends on how much of a Fallout 3 fan you are. All said, the new quest line will probably only take you a few hours to go through once, a few more for checking out alternate solutions, and that’s about it.

There's little more that can be said without ruining the fantastic story and the events within this latest expansion to the game's ever growing universe, but it stands that The Pitt is an absolute must buy for anyone who enjoyed Fallout 3 and a smashing return to form from Bethesda after their first lukewarm offering in Operation Anchorage.

If you enjoyed all that Fallout 3 has to offer you, then you will not be disappointed with The Pitt. Don’t let the negative stigma regarding the launch bother you. It is a quality content package that is well worth the 800 Microsoft Points.

Fallout 3: The Pitt has better pacing, more freedom and more interesting locations than Operation: Anchorage. Still, it's just more content to the extremely content-rich Fallout 3 and still forces the player to track back from the main ending to play, which undermines the meaningfullness of it all. [May 2009]

Splendid role-playing meets merely adequate blasting, but still trumps Op Anchorage. [June 2009, p.79]

With this expansion, Bethesda partially redeems itself in the face of Fallout 3 fans' so high expectations, pulling out a much better effort than the one provided for Operation Anchorage. The main problem seems to lie in the way these expansions are structured, which doesn't allow them to fully exploit Fallout 3 potential. The ones who devoured the main quest, will probably like The Pitt.

There are still nagging programming problems but for the most part, the Pitt does a lot better job at continuing the Fallout 3 experience. I enjoyed the DLC a lot more than the first one and it's nice to see a new and different environment in the game.

The download might be a little short for your money, depending on your tastes and how much bang you expect for your buck, but the quests are fun and The Pitt matches that feeling of despair that Fallout 3 does so well. If you can make it through without any glitches, you'll find a lot to like here. Until a patch comes, good luck.

While The Pitt may be a tad on the short side, there’s certainly enough content here to warrant the price.

Grim cityscapes and an intriguing moral dilemma help this Fallout 3 addition overcome its quirks.

It’s still not particularly polished, however, as I experienced a couple of crashes and some audio glitches with character speech, but other than that this is a fairly solid expansion that captures what makes Fallout 3 so good.

If you're a fan of Fallout 3, this is an enjoyable way to return to the game, though the story doesn't quite match up to the caliber of the better quests from the main game. Those who felt they didn't get their money's worth from Operation Anchorage are likely to feel the same way here, as this DLC pack also runs between 3 and 5 hours, depending on how much time you spend ingot hunting.

The Pitt doesn't offer a lot of impressive loot to score, collecting items for that last achievement is more trouble than it's worth, and the struggle-with-a-twist to free Pittsburgh's slaves (or not) is over before you know it.

As much as it pains me to say it, if you buy The Pitt, then you are essentially giving Bethesda money for nothing. Sure, you get a few more hours of play time in a new city, but nothing here is more substantial or worthwhile than any of the dozens of side-quests included in the original game.

The Pitt just isn't satisfying enough in any area to truly earn a recommendation for any reason other than it's more Fallout 3. [June 2009]

Unlike Operation: Anchorage, brief, dullish adventures in Pittsburgh are actually worth $10. It seems Bethesda has finally found the right formula for Fallout 3 expansions, although it’s far from being perfect.

Operation Anchorage was a good DLC due to an appreciated change in action-games dynamics; The Pitt turns back to the RPG style with great level design, fantastic new weapons and new enemies that should be the stars in any gore-party. Despite of this, this downloadable content hasn’t a solid storyline and it’s full of paradoxical situations due to bad-interactive NPCs... Only for Fallout 3 true fans, willing to forgive tons of glitches.