Borderlands games are well known for having a good comedic value to them that distinguishes them from other shooters. Between that and the RPG level of loot that you can collect and improve your characters and weapons with, the games are pretty unique. So why is it that every critical assessment of the game calls it the new Borderlands DLC? Well there are a couple reasons for that. The first reason is the same reason why Saints Row IV fell from popularity pretty quickly. Saints Row IV was originally going to be Saints Row The Third: Enter The Dominatrix before someone at Deep Silver presented it as a new game at a board meeting. And although it was a new game, they continued using the same map and graphics for all of the characters. This was the game's main criticism at it's release and why a lot of people didn't buy it. But the main selling point contradicting the game using the same map, was how different the game play was. You could run at supersonic speeds and glide across the sky. The guns were all very different and crazy in what they did. The missions and story weren't serious at all, having you complete insane tasks and spout ridiculous dialogue. You could tell what the game was when in the beginning 5 minutes you are the president and Keith David is your ally. The game used the same map and characters, but fundamentally was a more insane and much less serious game. Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, on the other hand, was too similar in game play and story to even be considered it's own game.
Borderlands The Pre-Sequel is a game that could have entirely been covered in one DLC. In the same regard, some of the Borderlands 2 DLC has more original content than Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. This is because the DLC is meant to be different enough from the main game that you would want to buy it, either in game play or in story. The Borderlands DLC has always been out there and different, from fighting robot ninjas, to playing D & D inside the borderlands mythos, The new Borderlands game doesn't do this however. This is because to create a sequel you need to include the lore and back story that the other games have set up and you need to expand upon it. This means on a fundamental level, the game needs to be similar in order to be a sequel. With DLC, you have most likely played and experienced the story of the main game and so when playing DLC, you will see little reference to the main game other than that the DLC exists within it. This means that the DLC can be much more different than the main game than a new game could be. Borderlands The Pre-Sequel has to do this, making it inevitably similar to the other Borderlands games.
The most major concept the game uses to dig it's own grave is it places itself within the first and second games, ergo a pre-sequel. what this does is make the game have to tell the story of the first game, but it constricts the game to have to set up to the next one. This is the only way the game can be canon. So by doing this the writers have given themselves a strict guideline they have to follow. This kills any ambition the writers have, which is exactly what makes Borderlands games so fun, the ambition and the spectacle of all of the bosses. But the worst part is that any boss or main character they create has to be completely irrelevant to the story of the game, because you can't kill a main character that exists in BL2 and you can't fight a character from BL1 without majorly throwing the flow of the story off. The game has no way of setting itself apart, at least on a story perspective.
The game play of the game, while adding new features, doesn't seem to improve upon or change any existing features from the last game. It adds a new oxygen mechanic and some weapon types, but really nothing to differentiate it from the other games. The oxygen mechanic is that you are on the moon, so there isn't a breathable atmosphere. You have to use an oxygen mask in order to breath. This precious oxygen can be used to double jump or ground pound, but reduces the amount you have. You have to refill the oxygen by moving into breathable atmosphere/ oxygen vents or by killing enemies. This means if you are in the middle of nowhere it is entirely possible to run out of O2 and suffocate to death. While this is cool and stands out, the only reason it exists is to push the player forward and keep you from just roaming around. It gives you an incentive to move from mission to mission, which is not dying. The new laser gun types and the new Cryo effect are pretty much what you's expect so I won't really talk about them. And the new characters are not that different, only really including Clap Trap as a playable joke. They are very much using the formula of turret character, character good with guns, character good with melee, and character with random abilities (replacing the Maya and Lilith characters with Clap Trap) so there's really nothing to talk about with them either. The game is fundamentally the same.
So after essentially writing a high school essay on why this game is DLC, that doesn't mean it's a bad game. It just isn't different from it's predecessors. So if you either haven't played a Borderlands game before or played all of the DLC for the other Borderlands games and want more, then go buy this. i would highly recommend waiting for a sale to lower the price a little bit. Trust me, you won't miss anything not playing this game day one.
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