Review:
Mass Effect 2 The Kasumi DLC--Well Worth the Money

A week ago Tuesday, Bioware released their latest downloadable content called the Kasumi Pack. I've had a week to play it and I’m happy to say I'm very pleased with this download.

First off, the pack gives us a new character named Kasumi Gato. I think my only complaint for the pack is that after the Illusive Man provides her dossier, you can pretty much just hop on over to the Citadel and get her. It would have been nice to have a mission to complete to recruit her, but that is the nature of the downloadable character (ex. Zaeed). But the dialogue to pick her up is very enjoyable and you are immediately given her loyalty quest.

Before we get into her quest, let me tell you the character of Kasumi is very good. Her voice acting is great, she looks really freak'n cool and her powers are amazing. First off, she has this Shadow Strike power where she goes invisible, pops up behind the target and does what essentially is a sneak attack with her gun. It's a very powerful move and if the target does not have any shields, barriers or armor up will usually kill the target. If you max out points in her Shadow Strike you can either up the damage or chose that if the attack kills the target, she can immediately use the power again. Otherwise it's a nine second cool down. I recommend the later.

Being a tech class, Kasumi's other main ability is Overload--it's always nice to have another character that can take down shields and obliterate boxes. Her passives are pretty standard -- tech power cool down or damage increase. But it's her loyalty power that's her other fantastic ability. That power is the Flash Bang Grenade. It's an amazing crowd control ability. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but that's not the point of the power. What makes it so cool is after it's thrown, it removes the ability of your target(s) to use any tech, biotic or weapon for a short period of time. A very useful power to train in if your class doesn't have much for crowd control (like the soldier). Maxing it out will give you the option to add damage or increase the area of affect--I recommend the later as the point of the ability isn't damage in the first place, much better to increase the potential of extra targets getting hit.