Fallout: New Vegas - Lonesome Road

The Good
Lonesome Road was the last DLC to be released for New Vegas, and centres around two characters from the main game: your faithful robot companion ED-E and the mysterious courier mentioned by many NPCs and who passed on the job which led to your character getting a bullet in the brain...

As with the other DLCs, there's a number of new enemies to deal with, and a set of new weapons to try out against them, as well as the opportunity to redesign the landscape a little bit by setting off abandoned nuclear warheads. It's also the most flexible area - not only can you leave and return at any time, but the military-dispenser "merchants" automatically restock their caps when emptied, allowing you to dispose of loot quickly and easily, rather than having to buzz around in search of someone with enough caps.

Then too, most of Lonesome Road is set in that most favored of post-apocalyptic settings: the ruined city, making for a nice change to the relatively natural landscapes of the main game.

Finally, Lonesome Road also offers the most spectacular ending of all the DLCs - and depending on the choices you make, a handful of new areas in the main New Vegas map will be unlocked.

However...

The Bad
It feels like the development team had started to run out of ideas by the time Lonesome Road was released. There's a single linear route through the map, there aren't any side-quests and the back-story of the mysterious courier feels weak and contrived. Oh, and once again, you find yourself fighting silent and automatically hostile semi-zombies; other than a handful of pre-recorded diaries, ED-E and the courier are the only characters with speaking parts.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Lonesome Road however, lies in the choice you have to make at the end of the main quest. There's essentially one "good" choice and three "bad" choices - however, the bad choices unlock one or more extra areas in the main New Vegas map.

So: do you play according to your character's chosen ethics, or do you unlock a couple of extra areas?

There's also a further issue - for all that your actions should have significant consequences (and indeed, you can actually hear the impact in the ambient soundtrack) - it has no impact on the final quest in New Vegas, nor is it noticed or mentioned by any NPC. This is perhaps understandable from a technical perspective, but it's still disappointing from a player's point of view!

The Bottom Line
Lonesome Road is arguably more playable than Dead Money, and more interesting than Honest Hearts, but it's still not particularly memorable.