The mission was pretty straight forward, bust into a Batarian jail, free a Hackett's friend, get her out. She's got intel on the Reaper invasion. Sounds good.

The Batarian jail was just what I expected. Run down, slip shod, looked like crap. Very Batarian, I liked it. There were a few "puzzle" elements but I put that in quotes for a reason. They're just not really puzzles, just grab a nearby valve and twist. I'm sure some people will complain about all the security locks being where you can get to them, often right next to the door/barrier they control but this is a prison. It's meant to keep people from getting out, not getting in. Combat prior to the bust out consisted mostly of jumping lone guards... or was I supposed to sneak by? Well if I was supposed to sneak by they shouldn't have been Batarians. I wasn't about to pass up killing them. Being ambushes it was simply to headshot guy #1 then hose down buddy #2 so they were never real "fights" just quick murders. After the breakout things are a bit more interesting with a nice escort/defend scenario and a short hanger storming to get your escape shuttle.

My biggest complaint about this portion is that the only bareheaded Batarians were the engineers. I want to get to watch the life drain from all four of their eyes as they die. 90% of the guys you shoot just look like random mercenary mooks.

On the evac you find out that the good Doctor found a Reaper artifact in this system that indicated the Reapers were returning in days, not weeks or months, and that the mass relay in this system was the Alpha relay that when the Reapers got to it they'd be able to immediately start jumping in all over the galaxy and do their thing. This is actually not that off given that the system you're in is a good long ways off the Galaxy. In order to stop the Reapers they are planning to smash an asteroid into the mass relay. The relay will likely explode though and the element zero core is powerful enough to destroy the entire system killing all 300 thousand Batarian colonists. So right now my Shep isn't seeing a downside. Slow down the Reaper invasion AND kill 300,000 Batarians? Sounds like a good day to her.

Well we arrive and in a "You fool!" moment you find out that the nutter actually brought the Reaper artifact into the base and learned things from it by getting mind melded with it. Surprise surprise, someone got indoctrinated. Now starts what was for me a moment of pure aggravation. The Doctor says you have to be stopped and the guards come after you. Well you get a count down meter of the artifact powering up, but no clue as to how to stop it. Enemies start to pour in every entrance. I'm fighting hard as I can but no options show up on how to stop the artifact or how to end the waves of enemies I'm facing. After I've killed about 30 of these guys they step it up sending in Ymir mechs and increasing the rate they enter the room. I'm getting swamped. I pause on the regular troops to down the Ymir and get it, but so many mooks are now in the room I can't fight my way past them to new cover. I get killed. I'm pissed because I can't figure out what I did wrong or how to fi... oh son of a bitch, I was supposed to get killed and captured. Harbinger apparently still has a thing for me and wants me captured. gak feth.

You wake up in a med bay and... here's probably the weakest part of this whole thing. 1) They didn't restrain me at all. Yeah, the Specter who's made a hobby of slaying cosmic creatures from beyond and they don't even have so much as a pair of cuffs on me. They also have a console, in the room, that lets me control security mechs nearby. Now I did love getting to pilot the mech but at the same time you can't help but feel the whole sequence was contrived for your convenience. So anyways you wake up, the person in the room squeals, security comes in and I knock them out... and their fething guns disappear. I use the mech to break me out and... are you gaking me? They had all my armor and weapons in a locker right outside the room they were holding me in. Apparently working for the Reapers makes you eat the idiot ball.

What follows is a long assault through the base to first start up the asteroid's engines. And yes, it is a long one. Room after room and corridor after corridor of the exact same three enemies in very similar rooms. I liked the new textures and architecture but they didn't do much more than make a lot of corridors and generic rooms with it. Opportunity missed there. The fights were never all that interesting. Kasumi had the gunships, Overlord had the VI section, Lair had the Broker, Arrival had.... a gak-ton of mooks. I paid $7 for this. Can't I at least get an original boss or new troops instead of recolored generic merc model mooks? Funny thing though, the female mooks look like they're wearing fishnet body suits and have armor pads over them.

The big let down in the whole thing to me was that there weren't any real actual choices to make in the whole thing. For instance you come to the project console that will turn the engines on, smash the mass relay and kill 305,000 batarians. You just do it. No option to do it yourself, you just automatically turn it on via cutsceen. Frankly I think the player should have been involved in that decision rather than having it automatic. Now I get that story wise this has to happen. If you don't pull the trigger on this asteroid then in two hours Earth is going to be Reaper-chow, but they could have found a way to have the player do it and actively participate in the decision, make it yours. And the doctor is going to die no matter what you do, renegade interrupt to just shoot her or now. Again, suck. The big pay off was the Reaper speech at the end. As always I liked the Reaper and my favorite was how you are now declared an "annoyance." Which given the scope of what the Reapers do and have done, and how they view the younger races is actually a pretty impressive accomplishment to be singled out as annoying. I wasn't entirely happy with my dialogue options honestly. I didn't want some generic "No matter what we'll oppose you!" speech. I wanted a "Go feth yourself you flying metal bug. I've already killed one of you so lets complete the set." Then again my Shep was the kind who'd see the end of ME2 and react with, "BRING IT ON!" instead of dread.

Hackett's debriefing was interesting and worth the price of admission. First off Hackett seems to trust Shepherd implicitly to do the right thing. He doesn't even need to see a report to know that if you had to kill the doctor and nuke 300k batarians it needed to be done. Above and beyond the usual need batarians have for killing. The downside is he can't cover for you and there will be a trail at some point.

The debriefing is actually interesting as I think we just got our info on how ME3 starts off. The Shep's trail on Earth. If you think about it then its a perfect way to begin. The trial starts off with them questioning you on everything you've done since ME1. This gives you an opportunity to review the big highlights of what you've done in the games so far, or if you're starting a new game you can supply your answers about what did and did not happen. Shep gets convicted, because you're an donkey-cave who tells them off as a Renegade or because you plead guilty as a Paragon to avoid a war. You're shipped off planet to serve your time and BLAM Reaper invasion. They attack Earth and shut down the relay. Timmy, if you gave him the base at the end of ME2 rescues you, or the Shadow Broker if you turned it sideways and shoved it up his ass, break you out. You go through the usual team rebuilding, regearing process as Timmy or the SB try to figure out how to open up the Earth relay again. You go out and collect your allies, Rachni, Quarians, Geth, Krogans, etc. and come storming in once the relay is open to relieve Earth. At this point do something to lure as many of the Reapers as you can to a single location then destroy the place's mass relay to vape the Reapers. That or Halestrom's sun. Or something with Dark Energy, or maybe all the ideas. Whatever.

Point is that I think the Arrival sets up exactly how ME3 starts. It's flat out telling you.

On the whole I enjoyed pretty much everything about this DLC expect when I started pulling the trigger. The story itself was fun, I liked the characters, and it set up ME3 big time. That said you were largely railroaded through the plot and the fighting was less interesting even epic encounters but instead just a mook grind.

I don't regret buying it just because of how much I enjoyed the story but for a lot of people looking for one last good firefight before ME3 this isn't it.

On a side note I totally agree with Tyyr, I think this is pretty much telling you how ME3 will start and thats a clever move by Bioware in my book.

Also I believe I totally mis-read the planned assault of the jail, and hacked my way through like some mad femshep on a sugar rush.

Looking at the achievements, it seems the jail is doable without killing any of the guards, so will try that with my 2nd Shep, a fella this time, who had finished the suicide mission.

Also the other is for surviving five waves when the 'indoctrinated' Doc sends her minions at you. Will try and do that one as well, as I was caught with my pants down last night on my first try, didn't survive the first wave.

In all it was fun enough.