Endor DLC/Tron Evolution Thoughts

I was mildly satisfied with Force Unleashed 2.  Given that, I decided to give the 80 point Endor DLC a day in court.  It's a good DLC, and in some ways, better than the core game itself.  It builds off of the Hoth DLC from the first game, and that alternate timeline.  I won't give away any spoilers, but you do come in contact with some original trilogy A-players.  Can't wait for some more.  The dlc gives a good mixture of combat, platforming and environmental manipulation.  Towards the end, it seems to have a couple superfluous sections, probably meant to drag the experience out for an extra few minutes, but it doesn't quite approach being overly repetitive.  For 80 points, this is a no-brainer.

I guess I'll talk a little bit about Tron: Evolution.  It's about to be banished to the phantom zone of myshelf.  It is much more polished than I would expect a movie tie-in to be, but the flaws are downright infuriating.  Now, I'm not a game designer, but I'd like to think I know a great deal about it from a hobbyist perspective.  This game is largely an acrobatic platformer and third person combat actioner.  The acrobatic pieces require exact precision, however, the controls are loosey goosey.  Case in point, in the game - through nearly 3 chapters, I have died 3 times due to combat (twice when taking on a tank, once in general combat), conversely 54 deaths have come via platforming.  Most of these deaths are a function of the game requiring you to die first to know how you're supposed to handle a certain section.  I'm no stranger to these types of games, I really like some of the games in this genre - however, they tend to reward the gamer for navigating/figuring out a section, rather than punishing a gamer for having not been exposed to that section previously.  The combat is mostly cookie cutter.  It's going for a Devil May Cry/Dante's Inferno type action scheme, and mostly hits it, but it's just not satisfying.  Different enemies take different strategies to defeat, which is a good thing, however, it all becomes rather rote after a few battles.  The shame here is that there is a good experience (maybe a 7.5 type game) lurking just beneath the surface, but poor design and gameplay choices drag the game down.  At $60, the game is just not worth it.  In a few months, when it can be had for $20, it may be a better value proposition.  I want to like this game, I want to finish it and maybe get some replay out of it, but it just makes me want to pull the plug on the MCP.