So, the good stuff: there are some new Dwemer ruins for you to run around in. There's a Werewolf perk tree, so that's not a complete waste now (yeah, immunity to disease is great and all, but it doesn't make up for an unarmored melee combat form or a lack of sleep bonuses). There's a sidequest where you can explore another round of Dwemer ruins (because we weren't utterly sick of that by the time the Blackreach quest in the main game was over - oh, and, just for kicks and giggles, the Elder Scroll you used in the main game swings back into relevance here, so I hope you didn't sell it). Apparently there are new things to smith, yay.
The bad: This will take a while.
The main character of Dawnguard is an incredibly bored-sounding I Hate You Vampire Dad-style vampire lady named Serana. Literally everything she says is delivered in a tone of voice that suggests her actress really didn't want to be in the studio. (Disclosure: her actress is the same actress who ruined the female Demon Hunter in Diablo III's expansion, delivering every line with a husky whispershout.) This despite the fact that, towards the end of the story, she gets long drawn-out confrontations with two people who screwed her over. During the first one you're stuck - the game doesn't put you in "conversation mode," but it does stop you from drawing your weapon. (As soon as the basically-a-cutscene is over, just FUS RO DAH him off the balcony. Dullest boss fight ever, and this after he sends waves of obnoxious minions at you.) The second time there's nothing to stop you sneaking up behind the guy and stabbing him in the butt. "Fun."
The other characters are: Isran, a knight-templar vampire hunter who naturally acts incredibly prejudiced and... well, you know what, there are these two groups, the Vampires and the Dawnguard, and it's funny how the vampires really don't give two f*cks about the Dawnguard. That's really all you need to know.
The plot. Where to begin? Ah, what the hell, let's just go in order. Spoilers from here on out.
On your first mission for the Dawnguard (a legion of vampire hunters) you find Serana (a vampire). You have no option to kill her or shoo her away. Until you take her back to her father's castle she will follow you around and complain in her uniquely bored voice about the sun, caves, the cold, and how Doctor Who hasn't been good since that Tom Baker fellow left. (One of these is a lie.) She does make a good pack mule, but then, all your followers do. She doesn't complain too much when you give her good items - not that she'll bother using them. (GIVE ME THE STAFF OF LIGHTING BOLTS BACK IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO USE IT.) I know I hate on Liara a bit in Mass Effect 3 for being a Creator's Pet, but really Serana takes the cake.
Okay so then you get to the castle and you meet her father, Lord Harkon. He offers to turn you into a vampire. No, sorry, Vampire Lord. It comes with this new transformation, but you can't use it in civilized areas (i.e., where Dragons attack) because it will turn everyone hostile. If you accept, you get entered into his court. If you decline, he banishes you. He doesn't lock you down in his dungeon with a bunch of human NPCs humorously named "vampire cattle," he just sends you back outside his castle. At this point you have to do a random time-killing quest for your chosen faction before Millstone shows up and suddenly decides that you're trustworthy because the game wouldn't let you kill her, and also because her father's insane.
Turns out Harkon wants to blot out the sun. Hrm. Maybe next time don't steal your plot from Angel's most contentious season, yeah? Oh, wait, it wasn't a vampire who blotted out the sun that time, it was a Satan-type played by Ulfric Stormcloak. Hrm.
Anyway, regardless of which faction you join, you have to track down a Moth Priest to read Serana's Elder Scroll - oh, did I mention Serana had an Elder Scroll? Cuz she does. It's just chillin' with her when you first find her. Her mother sealed her away from her father, we learn, which is why she... immediately has you take her back to her father. Brilliant. The next thing you have to do is go track down Serana's mother, who has another Elder Scroll. This at least gives you a cool horse and a dragon, both of which you can summon out in the overworld. It might also make you a vampire, even if you joined the Dawnguard. Alas, instead of getting to do any sort of cool "hunter/hunted" or "staring into the abyss" vibe, all that happens is the Dawnguard pricks tell you to go get cured before they'll talk to you.
The bad news is that you next have to track down the Elder Scroll also used in the main questline. Either you have it, or you need to buy it back, or you need to go into Blackreach and get it (and make sure to hold onto it for the main questline). (Of course, what Stinkermus Stinknis doesn't tell you is that the Mzinchelft entrance works just as well as the Alftand one and is much, much easier to get to.) Anyway when you bring the Scrolls back to the Moth Priest, it turns out he's gone blind. Y'know, cuz.
So then you have to go to this grotto and attract a bunch of moths so you can read the Scrolls yourself. I'm so glad that's all it took. After that heinous waste of time is over, it's off to find Auriel's bow. Why are you trying to find Auriel's Bow? I have no idea. You know Harkon wants it, and either way your main objective is to keep it out of his hands, so why you don't just have the Dawnguard storm the castle at this point is completely beyond me. Oh, and Serana has to come with you. Which is frickin' great.
I would hate Serana less if she:
-didn't complain about everything
-didn't insist on coming along and then constantly blow my cover
-could actually handle herself in a fight*
-didn't sound perpetually bored
I really hate, in a game that otherwise lets me do whatever I want to do, the fact that the game forces this ally on you. I'd mind less if she were, um, likable. She is not.
Now part of this might just be me projecting, since her voice actress also ruined the female Demon Hunter in the Reaper of Souls expansion for Diablo III, but seriously, Serana, I hate you. STOP USING THE SKYFORGE DURING KODLAK'S FUNERAL WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! NO, DON'T USE THE ARCANE ENCHANTER, I WANT TO USE IT, THAT'S WHY I'M HERE. DO NOT BUMP INTO ME AND PUSH ME AWAY FROM ONE LEVER SO THAT I ACTIVATE THE WRONG ONE DURING A DUNGEON PUZZLE. DO NOT RESURRECT THE WEAKEST MINION YOU CAN FIND. DO NOT RESURRECT THE BIG DUNGEON BOSS BEFORE I LOOT HIM... oh wait never mind that last one, even though the dungeon bosses can take you to pieces, their loot sucks. I hate that about all videogames (cough Diablo III cough) but especially this one, perhaps because it has a much shittier autosave feature.
*Let's also talk about videogame difficulty here for a moment, because it seems like certain developers have mistaken "fun" for "can't seem to draw a line between encounters you can breeze through and random super-powerful creatures that wipe the floor with you, oh, and by the way, you're responsible for quick-saving because our dungeons are so massive and we won't autosave regularly for you." I don't care what you call it, whether it ranges from "Veteran" (Mass Effect 2) to "Easy" (Dragon Age: Origins) to "Expert" (Diablo III) to "Apprentice" (Skyrim). I'll play at the level that hits the sweet spot between "difficult" and "not frustrating."
And then the ending fatigue. Kynareth almighty, the ending fatigue. I hate long dungeons to begin with, and virtually the only exception to this rule is Mass Effect 1, aka one of the greatest videogames I've ever played. (Note to self: blog post on why ME1 was better than ME2. Because it was.) Any situation where you can't teleport back to town and unload all your junk frustrates me; Mass Effect 1 managed to avert this by not counting your essential stuff (meaning health potions) towards your item limit, and also making each item only take up one slot in your inventory.
(By Talos, I'm comparing Mass Effect 1's inventory system favorably to something. Akatosh save us.)
Mass Effect 3 had a similar problem in that its final level was stretched out well beyond the realm of necessity into outright boredom. But anyway. So you're required to go fetch Auriel's Bow. Note that you are required to do this regardless of whether you side with the vampires or with the Dawnguard. (You're then required to bring Auriel's Bow, the key to Harkon's plan, to Harkon's front doorstep, again even if you sided with the Dawnguard.) Okay, fair enough, the thing can put out the sun and make it less difficult/fun to be a vampire. The fact that you have to interact with Serana in order to replenish your sun-shooting arrows doesn't really diminish its potential awesomeness.
But. To get it, first you have to go through a big dark cave. Then you have to go through another, even bigger, and even darker cave. Once that's done you're thrown out into another overworld area, one with no local map and no waypoints you can fast-travel to. Oh, and you can't summon Arvak here, either. There are "wayshrines," yes, but you can only use them to travel to other wayshrines and they're not distinctively labeled, so it's a crapshoot whether you end up anywhere closer to "where you're trying to go." (Oh, and the music might put you to sleep. Ugh.)
"Where you're trying to go" is this place where you can kill this guy who has the bow. "This guy" never even had his existence hinted at before you finished that first big dark cave, and he's never mentioned again after you kill him. It's like the encounter with that mad skeever-trainer underneath Honningbrew Meadery in the Thieves' Guild questline, except it takes two Arkay-forsaken hours. Once you've made it through two poorly-lit caves (didn't learn the Magelight spell? Haha fuck you. -Game.), a gigantic difficult-to-navigate vale, and another frickin dungeon full of jumpscare enemies (that didn't get old when you were prowling around the Volhikar castle ruins, no sir), you finally meet Arch-Curate Vyrthur or whateverthefrak his name is. He sits behind an impenetrable barrier while sending waves of minions at you and also dropping the ceiling on your head. Once all that's done, you're knocked down so that Serana can deliver some words of encouragement in a manner that makes Sean Connery's phoned-in performance in Diamonds Are Forever look like dedication incarnate.
Ultimately it's very satisfying to just FUS RO DAH his ass over the balcony... which of course in turn makes it also very anticlimactic. You also miss out on looting him, but that's okay because like with every other broken enemy in the game, his loot is magically less formidable in your hands than in his.
So then the final boss is Harkon, who, because he can drain your life and replenish his own, is at least more of a challenge, but his entire strategy alternates between "runs away from you while casting the drain life spell at you" and "hiding behind a shield you're supposed to shoot with Auriel's Bow." I really love being forced to work out entirely new strategies in the middle of a boss fight. It's so much fun. At least when the Mass Effect sequels pulled this crap on us it was at least somewhat self-evident what we were supposed to do.
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