Shooter styled with some beautiful scenery, sadly it's too short!
Unlike the last sim in this game, this one's in color, and its focus is plainly on shooting.The game has a small game world that has your teams base(you'll get there after you finish the first Quest), entirely covered in snow and unlike the capital wasteland, you will not be able to quick travel and it doesn't have a day and night cycle, though don't worry, the paths laid in front of you are pretty linear.The game pretty much scraps a lot of fallout 3 mechanics out the window, now you can't search bodies as they dissipate after they die, you also can only interact with certain objects that have an orange glow (and these objects are mostly ammo and the like). In order to get weapons you'll need to get a weapons package and you can only carry 1 package at a time.You also can only recharge health at certain health dispensers sprinkled throughout the game world.
The problem is that this doesn't really feel like fallout 3 and can be quite constrictive and then you can add fallout 3's combat engine.The game gives you simple missions( destroy something or clear out a place) and you can take a team of robots and soldiers to fight with you.This is pretty cool at 1st but then you have to command them through your lieutenant(who'll be your buddy and yes he'll actually kill enemies and he's invincible,not essential though as he can't even get hurt) and you can't command the team to do anything but go to this place, get reinforcements and attack, and once the attack begins, you can't stop it nor can you command the team flank or go into stealth.The enemies you face are also pretty easy to defeat and they're still not that smart, so battles end up in stand offs where they just can't win against the guy with the VATS, and you could stand in front of the sniper like enemies and they won't even attack you so the expansion is just too easy( esp. with health and ammo dispensers sprinkled everywhere around the game world).
However, to the expansions defense there can be some pretty fun and hectic battles and situations(like the 1st part where you can stealthily infiltrate a Chinese base). You do get some choice on which order you take the 2 objects on the 2nd quest though it's the end of the simulation does let you choose how to defeat the bad guy. The environments are also pretty beautiful with their snow and light clouds loom over head and the game's got some cool looking soldiers(esp. the Crimson Dragoon). You will also find some holotapes following the adventures of a soldier which are dramatic and you can also hack into some computers and lockpick doors. The music fits in tune and most of the voicework is great with soldiers talking about defeating the "commies" in funny ways.
The expansion sadly is a short one lasting maybe 2-3 hours and has only 1 side quest where you'll need to get 10 intel briefcases to unlock a perk. The expansion pack is also quite easy and the worst part is that once you're done with it, you can't even return to the simulation to get stuff you missed. At any case it might not be worth it but remember that you do get to walk away with some cool gear and some exp points when you're done.