Last week saw the release of the first substantial bits of downloadable content for two of my favorite games in 2009: Assassin’s Creed 2 and Dragon Age. Both are dipping their toes into the shark infested waters -- shoehorning new chapters into a book that’s already been finished. Public opinion has generally been pretty positive when it comes to multiplayer addons like map packs for Gears of War 2 or new cars for the Forza series, but try to insert a little more story into a single player game and the water starts to get a bit choppy. The arguments are generally that the game wasn’t finished when it shipped or even worse, finished content was held back to get a little more scratch on the back end of the deal. Since these are two of the best games of the year and both represent a substantial amount of play time right out of the box, they’ve earned their due.

I’d be a hypocrite to complain about spending five bucks on a couple hours of content as I sip my five dollar latte, so let’s have a look at whether or not these two downloads are worth your time.