Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty is the first of four major DLC campaigns for Borderlands 2, adding more story elements and a new area to the already expansive Pandora. Is Captain Scarlett worth exploring or would you be better off walking the plank?

There’s a pretty straightforward story to this expansion that has you looking for four compasses that, when put together, will lead you to a secret treasure – that is if you can survive the journey. Captain Scarlett tasks you with exploring every corner of the vast desert plain of Oasis. As you hunt down these compass holding targets you will run into new, and largely forgettable, faces, and that’s pretty much the main mission in its entirety  It can be completed in a couple hours if you just focus on it and not the side quests – luckily there are plenty to do.

As you progress through the main story you come across a slew of new side quests to undertake. As usual these side quests are fun at first, but as you continue on the novelty wears of and it quickly becomes obvious that they all pretty much feel the same and really aren’t that rewarding. They largely feel like fetch quests; I found myself skipping half of these just so I could finish the main quest before then returning to complete them just to experience everything this expansion had to offer. Now I’m not going to lie, it isn’t all bad. It does have its moments that make you and your co-op chums laugh but also at the same time some of these quests just feel like they were put in there just to bulk out the offering. They just aren’t as engaging as those found in Borderlands 2.

Captain Scarlett does, rather nicely, reward you for finishing the main story by giving you a lot of treasure chests containing rare items – which makes sense, what with it being pirate’s loot. The best part about this is that you have the option to redo everything again once you’ve finished it once before – thus giving you yet another chance to reap the rewards. If anything I found myself with thousands of dollars more than when I started, and – if you’re not at level 50 yet – this place is great for leveling up.

Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty adds new areas, enemies, a new hovercraft vehicle and a great reward for completing the main story; all of this makes it incredibly hard for any Borderlands 2 fan to pass up. Unfortunately, though, side quests make you feel like an errand boy and – while it does have some memorable moments – it still doesn’t live up to the rest of the Borderlands 2 experience. Think of it this way, if anything it adds more content and gameplay to an already amazing game that you should already love, well is that really money spent badly?

Audio/Visual- 5/5: Borderlands 2 had sharp colorful graphics that fit the style gameplay perfect. Which means nothing changed.

Gameplay- 4/5: More of that great shoot them then loot them is back…..need I say more? Oh yeah but also some of the bugs too.

Value-3/5: For the price it adds a decent amount but unfortunately falls short in other areas.

Innovation-3/5: Not that many memorable moments and side quests aren’t that great but in the end it does add more playtime.

Final Score: 3.5/5