Borderlands: Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution

Mission structure is also starting to feel rather well-worn. Dr Tannis is one of many returning characters, offering up another on-going collection quest like the one from Dr. Ned's Zombie Island. This time, it's Claptrap parts you're after, and while the numbers required aren't as ridiculous as the zombie brains, it's still frustrating that you have to turn in each stage of the mission before it'll start counting the collectables again. If you need to collect 75 parts, and you've hit that target, nothing you pick up will count until you return to Tannis and reset the counter.

The nine story missions are standard fare, requiring you to travel to new areas and battle through to map waypoints. The game never does a terribly good job of putting these mundane tasks in an interesting context, leaving you to kick-start power stations and sabotage factories without a compelling narrative reason to do so. It's your mission objective, so you do it, but there's no sense of why it matters. The locations are technically new, but follow such familiar patterns – junk heaps, caves, shanty towns – that it can be hard to tell.

The DLC is generous with the boss battles, though fans who take the game seriously may bristle at the way previously defeated DLC enemies have been rehashed and regurgitated as cyborg remixes of their old selves.

On top of this, there are 12 side missions set in and around the Tartarus Station environment, but few stand out. Most simply involve local fetch-quests, and are good only for dragging your XP a little closer to the next level.

That's assuming you haven't already run up against the level cap. Increased for the General Knoxx DLC, a free title update is planned to take it even higher, up to 69. For anyone working with a high-level character, you'll find that the New Robot Revolution offers little challenge, with most missions pitched at level 35 players. I played it with a level 41 Soldier, and breezed through without breaking a sweat. It'll take a few hours, but a little too much of it feels like padding.

Fans of Achievements and Trophies may also want to approach with caution, since four of the ten new challenges require you to collect items left randomly from defeated Claptraps. Not only does this turn the game's enjoyable loot drop mechanism into a grind, but there are reports that the game's counter is glitched, and even if you do manage to find five 3D glasses or 3 pairs of pink panties, your just reward may not unlock.

But then, of course, the Borderlands gameplay is still as strong as ever. This may be more of the same, but when the same is this good, it's hard to feel too aggrieved, even if it never quite feels like the experience is worth another 800 Points (£6.29 on PS3 and PC). High-level players won't be missing anything remarkable if they decide to wait for the level cap increase before quelling the Robot Revolution.