Arrival is the final piece of DLC for Mass Effect 2. You, Commander Shepard, are given a mission by Admiral Hackett to retrieve a scientist arrested in Batarian space. Since this is a prison break, you have to fight this one solo. This scientist is named Dr. Amanda Kenson, and she claims to have evidence of the imminent Arrival of the Reapers.
Arrival doesn’t really feel very fresh. The environments feel reused and bland. The combat is a little different because you fight this one alone. Though it seems like a radical change, it really isn’t. You still mix powers and gunfire to plow through enemies. There is one section where you fight through several waves of enemies with the only goal of surviving, but you will eventually fall. The entire mission took me about 2 hours to finish.
Story wise, Arrival is decent. Instead of providing choices, Arrival is more focused on setting up Mass Effect 3, which as you learned from the intial trailer, puts Earth under attack from the Reapers. Arrival has a not-so-shocking twist and one choice. While both options lead to the same immediate impact, the long term ramifications are huge.
While Arrival is not the most fun DLC, if you go into Mass Effect 2 without it, you will not know what is going on. For that, I recommend it, but don’t expect anything mind-blowing.
