GT5: New DLC - A total waste of time??

Got round to buying the new DLC and yes, I am quite a bit disappointed. Firstly Polyphony Digital have reportedly made tens of millions from the DLC release already and as GT is their only investment you would expect that for a quarter of the game price, they could deliver something akin to a quarter of the game. I guess £10 for 14 cars and 2 tracks (forget the gimmicky Paints / Outfits) isn't bad value when compared to something like CM DIRT3's shameless integration of dozens of paid downloads into the story line itself, but for a game as big as GT5, which has a huge design team, hundreds of endorsements and a wealth of old material that can be and is quickly ported forward... well, I just expected more. Some sort of expansion to the game was called for, not just some add ons that can only be used online. I would be much happier to pay £25 for an expansion roughly the size of GT5 Prologue. If we've another year to wait for DLC of a similar nature then I'm not looking forward too much.

I'll start with the 14 new cars. 3 of them are karts. Well OK I guess this fraction of the game does need some variety, but 2 new classes and no new karting events? As for the mostly non-real "Touring Car" collection, jeez, who didn't see those coming. Some die hards are saying the last thing GT5 needs is more new cars, but it needs exactly that; more new cars. Not just these constant rehashes of the same old JDM crew, headed up by no less than four more Skylines! I have been wanting a wide-body R32 for a long time now, but three more with similar specs in a pack this small is desperately close to filler material. Let's not forget this is on top of the new car added to the Dealerships with the 2.0 patch, the Schulze N24 GTR, and the new car awarded with the most recent Time Trial event, another Spec V GTR... OK PD, we get that Nissan let you help design the GT-R and we respect that. Skyline is king of Gran Turismo and we love them, but too much of a good thing, eh, when there are so many other brilliant new cars on the market since GT5's release. As for the Eunos, RX-7, EVO and Impreza TCs, all nice, but again too familiar and they don't perform great either next to existing versions, so lack application [I've only raced the Eunos in the 4-Hr Endurance just to make use of one]. I will give some credit to the Dodge Challenger Touring Car though. It's unlike any tuned American car I've seen on GT before and looks like a good tool for any USA Class racing, but I still haven't tried it. I guess the most original and exciting cars of the DLC pack have to be the two hybrids oddly enough. The Prius and CR-Z TCs are fresh looking and an all-hybrid race series is an interesting prospect, but alas thats all these cars are good for. You would expect them to be secret weapons for Endurance races with performance and crazy fuel economy, but I have found they're just not competitive at all against full blooded cars, even in the same PP band. With the 12+ months of development this DLC has had would it have been too much to ask for a properly special car, like one of the new Ferraris or Lamborghinis, to have made its way in - something that even GT5P got eventually for free. Updated NASCARs for free, but no Ferrari F11 even with DLC?! That might just be a personal thing. All in all, with the continued profits PD will make as players filter back off MW3 and co., a bigger, brighter car list would not have gone amiss.

However, the real disappointment to me was the two new tracks. Don't get me wrong they're both great circuits, but it struck me that they can only be used in Arcade, Practice and Online PvP. The latter is useful, but outside the Lounge they haven't been integrated into the game whatsoever and this, for me, is the biggest let down of all. No new events, no new specials, no DLC-only Online Seasonal events, no level-cap or completion percentage increase, no extra special licence, no new trophies?? No integration into the game at all - this is more like 1.2 than 2.0. They aren't even grindable, which for me is where I take time to learn a track. Given the several year lifespan of the game, I feel a proper overhaul could have been achieved by now, even if it cost us more than £10. I know Japan has had more to contend with lately than making video games, but less focus on the Academy and stuff and more on the actual GT please.

Oh, and I forget to mention the Red Bull X2011.