A lovely little expansion that functions as a great sendoff for the game. It's accessable early enough in the game that you can get the weapon and armor rewards fairly easily if you choose to grind them out, which is a especially useful in NG+. The weapons themselves are a blast and even offer some unique and silly effects with higher tier variations that makes them into desirable picks all the way into the end game. The armor sets look and feel great, with many having unique set bonuses that take the DLC's recurring theme of "Having a little extra fun with the apocalypse" outside of the testing room with strange and eclectic effects to add a little flavor to the main game experience.
With nine incresingly difficult levels consisting of two of four floors and one of three bosses at the end it does't SEEM like there would be a lot of variety, but being able to add extra challanges in exchange for better loot and a more fun style of run means that you can do the same level over and over with a functionally infinite number of settings to make it play differently. The central hub offers a quick and easy shortcut to previous areas of the map once they're all unlocked, no more ridiculous backtracking all over the place.

Overall I'd say it's definitely a worthwhile addition to any playthrough of the game. My biggest complaints come from some of the challange mutators clashing hard with the levels themselves, such as ones that force the player to constantly move around to avoid obstacles while progression through the level requires you to stay in one place. The Overseer comentator strikes me as a bit of a GLaDOS ripoff (A mysterious voice controlling and building a fururistic testing environment that's determined to kill you in a giant facility following a catastrophic collapse of order, hmmmm) without the same charm. He can get grating pretty fast, especialy if you find yourself doing multiple runs back to back and have to hear the same quips over and over. Thankfully your █████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ███, which I found hilarious.

Picked this game up through the Humble Bundle, figured I would play it to get my Souls-like fix, especially after the sequel was just announced. It's shallower than your traditional Souls game with much less emphasis on RPG elements, but the core mechanics are solid enough to hold one's attention through to the end.

TLDR: OVERALL SCORE: 6.5/10. What it does good it does good enough and what it does bad is only annoying/disappointing at worst. If you are a fan of the Souls-like formula and don't mind having a lighter narrative crust over your meaty mechanical pie then go ahead.

__PROS:__
• Decent story. A little predictable overall but competent enough to not be entirely cliche. The big bad megacompany actually feels more complex than your standard faceless evil corporate machine with characters who are sympathetic and understandable. There are moral choices to make but few of them are black and white, there's a lot of grey areas in considering whether or not what you're doing is actually the right thing. the best characters in the game, in my opinion, are the ones who you only ever encounter as voices in audiologs. Show-don't-tell is a staple of the Souls-like, and most of the telling is also accompanied by some effective showing. You can piece together a character's story well enough from their corpse and surroundings, but their final words left behind where they fell are the icing on the depression cake.

• Solid gameplay. The tried and true Souls formula works well with this game. The weapon types all feel different and require different playstyles, and the whole picking-up-your-lost-bits-from-where-you-died thing adds tension to extended runs. One of my favorite improvements on the Souls-like format, related to that last point, is the bonus you get for carrying large quantities of scrap (this game's equivalent to the eponymous Souls) for long periods of time. It incentivizes the player to take risks for higher rewards. Enemies are also nicely varied with increasing levels of mobility and danger as the tougher fiends come out to play, but in true Souls-like style you should never underestimate the lowliest of grunts lest they stunlock your butt back to Ops.

• Beautiful visuals. I don't know about you but I adore the style of futuristic design that runs throughout this game. Environments run the gambit from dilapidated missile graveyards to dank sewers and industrial manufactories with a harsh cyberpunk feel, all the way up to posh post-modern luxury befitting the upper crust at Creo. The enemy designs, though mostly humanoid a la Dark Souls 2 with its million flavors of "dudes in armor", are different enough amongst themselves that most enemies are easily identifiable. The scrappy look of your run of the mill worker zombie next to the sleek angular design of the security forces adds a nice layer of subtext that increases as you explore the enemy food chain, with the look of an enemy immediately giving you an idea of where it sat within the heirarchy of the company.

• Drag-and-drop progression. The Surge opts out of the traditional RPG progression style that most Souls-like games go for in favor of a more... Lego-like approach. The main numerical skill that you increase is your overall power level, which in addition to giving you across-the-board improvements also unlocks shortcuts and secrets found throughout the levels. It's a nice way to bring the player back to an area they already explored to see what's behind the door with the big red 50 on it. Instead of pouring levels into one skill or another, you unlock more slots for Implants as you level up which allows for an ever-increasing number of possible combinations. You can adjust your "build" on the fly from, for example, a health-heavy tank to a deadly drone using sprinter. The fact that these Implants draw from the same limited power source as your armor is also a clever way of making the player balance their stats and bonuses.

• Nice variety of gear. While every weapon within its respective category has an identical set of moves (with a few notable exceptions, mostly consisting of boss gear), each weapon type feels different enough to warrant a change of playstyle with each one. For example, if you're using a slower heavy duty weapon you're damn well going to want to run high-stability armor so you can stay on your feet long enough to actually land a blow. But if you're using a quick-hitting twin rig weapon you can afford to go lighter and free up some energy for Implants.

__CONS:__
• Some poor level design. Especially towards the latter part of the game there was an embarrassing number of times where I had to hop over to GameFAQ's just to figure out where I was supposed to go. Research and Development and the Nucleus were the absolute worst in this regard, mostly because they relied heavily on traversing the level with claustrophobic tunnels hidden in the walls. It's one thing to have to clamber through a dimly lit corridor to pop out of a vent to unlock a door leading back to Ops for a quick shortcut, but when your trip from the medbay to where you died requires you to go up four Exo-lifts and traverse two miles of idetical looking orange tunnels it becomes *very* easy to get lost. And it's a shame because every level is uniquely designed and fun to explore, but I spent a lot of time scratching my head in a maze of floodlights and orange pipes.

• Forgettable music. I was expecting a bombastic synth-heavy score to go along with all this scifi exo-suit goodness. What I got was a pretty bland electronic soundtrack that could fit with pretty much any videogame ever. I couldn't tell you a single moment where I thought to myself "Wow this music is great, it really fits the scene!" More often than not I was listening to music outside of the game while I played. On the subject, the Ornstein and Smough theme is still the best boss theme and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

• Token questlines. I really didn't like most of the side quests and the characters you do them for. For starters almost every one of them takes place in the same level, a clear sign to me that they were only included because that's just something that is expected with a Souls-like game. I can only think of one sidequest that I actually cared for, the others were either poorly paced or had characters that didn't give me much reason to care about them. Either that or they tried too hard and came off as a little obnoxious. I still did them for the most part, but there was no Siegmeyer or Solaire to this game. Just a bunch of randos asking me to do stuff for them because I was the only one not glued to the floor. Ironic considering your character starts the game off crippled!

• Disappointing bosses. The biggest letdown to me. A Souls-like lives and dies on its bosses. They're supposed to be big, tough, nasty, towering behemoths that kick your arse again and again and again until you learn all their ticks and can predict their movements based purely on memory and instinct. In this game there are *five* bosses in total. One of which consists of an earlier boss being recycled as a side boss that you fight while the main guy is off taking a smoke break. The fights themselves are fine for the most parts. The big robot ones in particular really scratched my itch for killing something huge and menacing, but the remaining ones where it's just a dude with a flashy moveset don't really feel all that special to me. Especially once you discover the all-powerful tactic of spamming the concussion drone and hitting them while they're down. One of the bosses in particular is even called "Big sister 1/3", which to me feels like an enormous blueballs tease since it's the only one you ever fight. I was expecting to go up against two more increments on that enemy with a new twist each time but nope, it's one and done. Makes me wonder if there were intended to be more variations of that fight that wound up cut from the game.

Protip: Overwatch around corners, ♥♥♥♥ on everything.

Very fun until you realize there's only like three bosses and level types. A very cool concept that I'd love to see more of but wouldn't recommend buying in its current state. Or buy it and get a refund after you find everything in an hour and a half, that's what I did.

♥♥♥♥ you OVERKILL and your money-grubbing, game-breaking ways. You absolutely ruined this game for me.