Review of Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker by Adam Milton

Lair of the Shadow Broker is the best DLC Mass Effect has to offer. Rarely does anything live up to the hype or even surpass it. This DLC has a perfect blend of action clichés, fan service, new mechanics, and challenging gameplay.

 This is another DLC that works best, narratively, directly after you complete the main game. You return to Illium to see Liara, a squad mate and potential love interest from the first game. She has become an information broker and needs your help.

 I know she was popular as a romance option in Mass Effect 1, but I never chose her. She felt to me like the born‑sexy ingénue and so never interested me. This time around, though, Liara seems a lot more mature and self‑assured. Her character growth is one of the best elements of this DLC. Liara in combat is formidable as well, and it is fun to have someone else from the first game in your squad for some throwback fun.

 I will not give away details, but the story is engaging, and BioWare takes every opportunity to inject intrigue and action into each beat. Despite the relatively short nature of the DLC, you find yourself zipping around Illium in a flying car chase (think The Fifth Element), in running gun battles, and in a final showdown on a massive airship in the volatile skies of a brutal world.

 The visuals, and how the gameplay takes advantage of your locations, help to make this DLC really stand out. In the second half of the game you are in firefights on the outside of a giant airship in a planet‑wide storm. Reminiscent of the Battle of the Citadel in the first game, you find yourself ducking between antennae and the superstructure of the ship itself.

 By the end of the DLC there has been a nice change in the status quo of the galaxy. You feel like you made a difference and the world is better, and more interesting, for it. This is the best DLC in the Mass Effect trilogy and adds a great deal to the world and its characters.