Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot has all the style and personality expected from a title like Borderlands, however it lacks compelling gameplay and wears thin in the long run. If you haven't heard it before, it's worth saying again. This DLC pack is not about leveling up, finding cool guns, or building weapon proficiencies. The Underdome is specifically all about killing enemies in a variety of ways and seeing how much you can survive before calling it quits. The name of the game is wave combat. Enemies will rush you in themed hordes through several rounds in your struggle to make it through three arenas loosely based on places from the main story. While that sounds simple enough, the title character Mad Moxxi has all kinds of rules and effects to spring on you at the worst possible moments.
It's probably a bad sign when all the best parts of this DLC pack have nothing to do with actual gameplay. The highlights are the character Mad Moxxi, her inability to stay married, and the cool main theme that shows up in a number of ways. The Boss Wave music is a standout. The Underdome has some of the best music Borderlands can offer if you can stick with it long enough to hear it. However everything else is lackluster and probably won't hold your attention for long. Also, it has a bank where you can store items. It's not enough to justify a purchase, but man, it does come in handy if you want to keep a gun you no longer use but admire for its design or stats.
What's supposed to be the heart of this DLC are three arenas. Hell-burbia, a small arena packed with buildings. Angelic Ruins, a wide hilly space with plenty of stone and statues. And The Gully, what is best described as a shoutout to Krom's Canyon minus the bottomless pits. All your time spent killing for Moxxie's entertainment will be in these three areas. If you can last 5 rounds (with 5 waves each round) in all three arenas, you can earn an extra skill point. But that's the problem with the Underdome. All the effort you spend killing and barely scraping by is never met with an adequate reward. Even the guns that drop after each boss wave are no better than the vendor trash you can find in some random gun chest. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll find something great. Most often, it's junk.
There's also a confusing low number of enemy types that show up. You won't fight Rakks, or Spiderants, or Scythids, or Zombies. The only four types of foes you'll deal with in the Underdome are Bandits, Crimson Lance troops, Skags, and Guardians. That's it. There are no secret bosses. No special guests. You won't even fight Mad Moxxi or even see her face to face without a swooping camera angle or a weapon with serious zoom. Considering the loads and loads of wave combat you're in for, a larger variety of things to shoot at would have added badly needed freshness to how things play out.
On top of this are longer challenges in the same arenas that span 20 rounds. These are insanely punishing marathons for people who are as crazy as Mad Moxxi herself. And your reward for scraping by 20 rounds in all three arenas? (That's 300 waves total). Nothing. You get absolutely nothing except 4 achievements. This DLC would probably fare better if it was made clear that the only reward players can look forward to is their own gratification of surviving Moxxie's insane challenges and nothing more.
