PixlBit

Metro: Last Light was a lot of things, including a competent shooter in which I didn’t actually shoot a whole lot because stealth often was the best approach. Rather than let a good engine be underused, 4A Games has developed the Tower Pack DLC with combat front and center.

The Tower Pack is a small collection of horde/survival style battles experienced through a virtual combat simulator, which you as a wounded soldier are testing. After the introductory round, you’re free to choose a loadout and a map and go to work.

Certain maps feature a unique property such as low lighting, but overall, they’re quite boring—mostly symmetrical with few strategic elements beyond the occasional explosive barrel. Each map you complete unlocks access to more weapons.

Battle performance is scored, with bonus points awarded for the usual distance kills, headshots, and kill streaks. The online leaderboards included may provide incentive to perform well, although I personally was too preoccupied with trying to survive to think about setting any records. While you fight, you’ll also earn military-grade rounds (the Metro’s currency) you may shoot or, more wisely, use to buy ammo and reinforcements.

Last Light’s combat works well as a component of a larger and well balanced game, but it doesn’t fare well isolated from its context. The slow, low-capacity, and low-damage weapons are ill-suited to fight off swarms of enemies, and even less with so little ammo to go around. Like with the combat-centered Heavy Squad mission from the Faction Pack, I struggled even after lowering the difficulty to easy.

I appreciate 4A Games trying something different with DLC. While the Faction Pack was a (mostly) successful expansion into new gameplay styles, however, the Tower Pack is simply ill conceived and antithetical to a big reason why Last Light is great: the fact it’s more than a generic FPS. Stripped down, it doesn’t hold up compared to any number of other shooters you could play.