Arrival - Going out with a bang

Lvl 30 Soldier
Post suicide mission
 

The term "Going out with a bang" has to be taken a bit more literal here rather than the fact that it was a blast to play. Shepard is contacted by Admiral Hackett who tasks him to spring an old friend of his, Dr Amanda Kenson, from a batarian prison. Shepard is alone on this mission since Hackett refuses to risk Kenson's life by sending an entire squad of people. 
 
This is where Arrival has a chance to shine a bit with the minor stealth element - using non linear paths to sneak past guards rather than fight them. Though I stress the word minor since it's Shepard we're talking about here and there's no real loss in going guns blazing.  When Kenson is located she becomes a temporary party member while they escape the prison. There's nothing new going on here aside from a part where you have to protect Kenson while she hacks a console. 
 

Upon escape, it quickly turns out that she has acquired a reaper artifact that shows the time when the reaper swarm arrives to the galaxy. Only way to slow the reapers down is to destroy the mass relay in the system by launching an asteroid at it. The blast will also take out the entire solar system.  Nothing comes easy, of course, when Shepard has to fight indoctrinated scientists and guards in order to get the asteroid moving towards the relay. Something you can compare to Bring Down the Sky actually. A lot of people to fight and beautiful vistas to look at but nothing overly interesting. It's run and gun as usual with no real emotional choices. 
 
Only real grief is that it just doesn't feel like the DLC to sign off on Mass Effect 2 with. It didn't bring the emotions we were given from Lair of the Shadow Broker, the various environments from Overlord or even the quirky exclusive gameplay from the cocktail party in Kasumi's Stolen Memories. 

Arrival is an adequate DLC. It's not great by any means but it's not bad either. Though I did expect more than the 1 hour and 10 minutes it took for me to cruise through, including all dialogues and questions answered.  
 
If you feel you can wait, I recommend doing so. If it was possible: You could pretty much buy it and finish it while Mass Effect 3 were installing to your harddrive. It's just a bit too short to recommend day one purchase.