meh. dont care for their reasons. publishers are in the business to make money they will do things like this in some form or fashion. if that means putting the screws on a developer to finish a game by a certain time frame or leaving certain conent out for dlc to turn an extra buck. if the day comes out when you get like 30% of the game at launch like say...you could only play ME2 up to the point of getting your team but not loyalty missions but could still finish the game with ship upgrades but would lose most of your crew during the final assault. then they sell those loyalty missions in say a 3 character pack...then a that point things would get retarted. will probobly get that way at some point and when that happens..yeah i will stop playing games until they come out in the now adays inevitable GOTY editions. heres hoping that some day the developer can break free from any contracts/agreements that they have with publishers and have the money to put into high production games on their own. cause at the moment...if you want the flashy big production games that your getting...its the publisher..the one really pissing everyone off that puts up the cash to have those games made..if they are not gonna make their share holders happy they wont put up the money to make the game. double edge sword.

edited cause i R Dum.

Bioware... The inventors of the buy our crappy overpriced 1 hour extra playtime DLC for 15 bucks through this NPC (Dragon Age).

Dragon Age caused me not to buy Mass Effect 2 untill well over a year I could pick it up from the bargainbin while they had a 50% off on all DLC promotion. Still ended up paying a total of artound 40-50 bucks (cant remember exactly) but at least I ended up with the complete game.

Will do that again I guess.

I am sick of all the game "review" industry apologists kissing ass and excusing for these guys.  The simple fact of the matter is, this is important content THAT IS ALREADY FINISHED, and we are still about two weeks ahead of the release.  Why are they charging for this one again?  Good luck answering that, game informer, lol.

Two things:

1. If they included this DLC in the original story line, then it likely would have pushed back the release date (consider that, possibly, red tape related processes would be initiated until the game was fully complete).

2. This is possibly just marketing gone wrong. Had they simply kept it off the "shelves" for a month or two, nobody would be complaining (unless of course the storyline itself was lacking). Someone, somewhere, thought it would be a good idea to offer it as soon as possible. Apparently that was the wrong decision.

In regard to people saying it should be free simply because of the timing, that depends on the effort put in. Usually developers and designers move on to other projects once the game is done. If resources were expended, then why should it be free?

Long story short, hard to say until people have played the game. Sure, this might be an evil attempt by EA and Bioware to make more money. But that will be evident in the length of the story. If it's too short, complaints justified. If it's a good length, then it was just a marketing f**ck-up.

Personally, I love the fact that DLC's contain important parts of the story, makes it feel more like chapters, and less like tacked on content.

NO NO NO ITS CALL OF DUTY ALL OVER AGAIN!

If "hardcore" gamers don't already know this something is wrong.  Very wrong.  Obviously the game must be completed, quality tested, manufactured, and the shipped & sold.  I'm all for day one DLC.  More game = more fun.

I can dig it.

**SPOILERS** All I'm reading is "This DLC was completed before launch." If ANY content is complete before launch, there is absolutely no excuse to not have it on the disc, especially something of this magnitude which is no doubt essential to the Mass Effect story. It's a PROTHEON for crying out loud!

Another interesting bit of opinion... Multiplayer was added due to the fact that ME3 won't really have room for much single player DLC (excluding guns and things) so this way they will have an avenue to continue making money on DLC (through the Multiplayer store).

I am sick of all the game "review" industry apologists kissing ass and excusing for these guys. The simple fact of the matter is, this is important content THAT IS ALREADY FINISHED, and we are still about two weeks ahead of the release. Why are they charging for this one again? Good luck answering that, game informer, lol.

Regardless of any of this, I'm still excited for it and can't wait to get my hands on the CE come March 6th.

This issue has come up so much on this site recently, that it's hardly worth wasting the time to argue about it again. I'll leave the debate to everyone else this time. My energy is better spent getting caught up on some other games before I start enjoying Mass Effect 3 with it's DLC.

At least it's not as bad as Gears of War 3 was.

I already wasn't going to buy Mass Effect 3, due to Mass Effect 2 completely screwing up the story due to switch of writers, but now I have another legitimate reason. Retconning a Prothean to life is bad enough, but cutting him out of the game just to sell to gullible gamers is just disgusting.

I still don't buy it to be honest. If it's ready day one, why can't they pull a Limited Edition and give it for free to early adopters? DICE gave away Back to Karkand (which is assuredly a much larger bit of DLC than this will be). And it's not like EA hasn't done stuff like this before. As far as I know they practically invented the concept of a "Limited Edition" with free content for early purchasers. Though, upon thinking about it, EA was trying to stack the deck for BF3 against MW3 so of course they would be generous. Mass Effect is a different, and highly anticipated, game that doesn't really have any stiff competition in it's release period.

As unpopular as this post will be, I say who cares?

We all love our games so much we feel these companies owe us something, that we get all bent out of shape everytime something like this happens. If you are that upset, then don't buy it. This is simply a product of the economic way of life, supply and demand in a way. EA knows people will want this, so they are charging for it. But in no way is this content OWED to any of us, no matter how many N7 tattoos or Liara T'soni hentai pics you have on your computer.

At the end of the day it comes off as a "I want this but don't want to pay for it," rant.

I want showtime and cinemax, content my cable company won't let come through my box because I don't pay for it. More or less, the same rule applies here.

Or are we hoping if we all fold our arms and stomp our feet like two year olds we will all get the toy we want..

I'd find this less irritating had I been able to actually purchase the CE when I pre-ordered the game over a month ago.  

And yet people are still going to whine and b*tch.

there is only one explenaition GREED!

Huh. I wish that it was free.

That really does nothing to explain why they're charging $10 for it or why they couldn't have just taken the time to include it in the game.