The Robo-lution WILL be televised...or rather, played.
The story here is that Hyperion reprogrammed an original Claptrap into what we know as the INAC, in order to indirectly kill the Vault Hunters. During its mission, the INAC grows tired of how Claptraps all over Pandora are being subjected to slavery and humiliation by humans, and decides to start the "Robo-lution", turning all Hyperion-brand Claptraps against not only their oppressors, but all humans. If you weren't aware, that definitely includes YOU. Hyperion has no choice but to now hire the Vault Hunters to put an end to the Robo-lution.
You start off in Tartarus Station, which serves as the DLC's hub area and is the first of six new areas you will traverse. These new zones are mostly pretty large and expansive, and are crammed with little nooks to explore and weapon chests to loot. Seeing as you'll be doing all your traveling on foot this time around, occasionally the zones can seem pretty needlessly large and can feel like they are only sized how they are to artificially lengthen the relatively small amount of quests you embark on over the course of the game. However, for the most part, I still found them to be well-designed and fun to explore, my favorite of the six being Dividing Faults, which contains a rather massive Hyperion factory to run around in. You'll also be checking out Sander's Gorge, a dark, daunting, and confusing maze-like underground cave system that, while initially cool, can grow tiresome pretty quickly.
Regardless of how you feel about Claptrap, there's something in this DLC for those both for and against him. Those who are for, I am happy to report that there are tons of the little guys in here, amusing charm and all. Those who are opposed, good news! You will be blasting apart 99% of the ones you come across. Yes, the various types of enemy Claptraps will serve as the primary antagonists for the duration of you adventure. Unfortunately, these new Claptraps are the only real new enemies to face. The other enemies consist of resurrected and rebuilt versions of bandits and Pandora's native creatures, all appropriately and humorously re-named with the addition of the "trap" suffix to their standard monikers. While they have new dialogue and slightly different looks, their behaviors are exactly the same as their original versions. Even the new Hyperion Guards are basically re-skinned versions of the Crimson Lance. There are also a handful of old boss foes that make a reappearance, including General Knoxx and Dr. Ned, as well as an actual showdown with Commandant Steele, who you never actually faced in Borderlands. Sadly, fighting with her, I was immediately reminded of the fights with the Lance Assassins from the previous DLC. While all of this recycling didn't bother me as much as it may others, I still couldn't help but feel disappointed that more wasn't done here. On a more interesting and brighter note, the final boss fight with the Mega Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap, which I won't spoil here, is arguably the most massive and fun boss across all of Borderlands and its DLC. It was certainly a pleasant surprise.
Luckily, the recycling is somewhat made up for here with Borderlands' usual great sense of humor, which is as strong and prevalent as ever here. There's a lot of chuckle-worthy dialogue and mission text to be found, including many of the lines uttered by the enemies. Destroyed Claptraps will say things like "Error 404...File...not...found...", "I see three flashing red lights..." and a few others that tastefully keep in with the game's theme. Of course, the humor wouldn't be the same without Gearbox's trademark plethora of pop-culture references, and there are plenty of those. You'll hear a variety of references to things like Bioshock, KFC, Terminator, Spy vs. Spy, and undoubtedly a lot more. Even when the quests were waning on me, the game still kept me laughing every few minutes.
Speaking of quests, they, along with the structure of the DLC in general, can leave a lot to be desired. The story is incredibly short, and the side quests only number in just above a dozen. I still managed to finish everything CNNR had to offer in sometime between 7 and 8 hours, as many quests are fed to you slowly and are longer than needed. One questline, which happens to be the first one you come across, is essentially a rehash of the 'Braaaains' questline from The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, but instead has you collecting parts from destroyed Claptraps, and may require you to go out of your way to grind for many of them instead of having all of them come to you through the natural progression of the game. Additionally, a lot of the new achievements involve finding totally arbitrary and incredibly rare items dropped from Claptraps that are completely unrelated to anything in-game. Fetch quests won't come as anything new to fans of Borderlands, but especially after the step-up in gameplay and quest variety in General Knoxx, most of the quests in CNNR feel like uninspired filler and simply don't do enough to take advantage of its premise or setting.
If you already like what Borderlands has to offer, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution should prove to be a satisfactory several hours more of looting and shooting entertainment. However, those expecting the same kind of improvements and brand new gear from its downloadable predecessor could come away disappointed. In any case, I still found myself having plenty of fun with it, and I particularly found its ending to provide great closure to the original Borderlands, with it even hinting at a potential sequel. If this is indeed the final DLC for Borderlands, at least story-wise, this is the perfect stopping point.