The newest level in the Left 4 Dead saga is a 3-chapter kill-a-thon entitled The Passing. This level is situated between L4D2′s first two acts, Dead Center and Dark Carnival. If you’re at all familiar with the campaigns, you know that Dead Center ends with our four heroes gallantly omitting themselves from a zombie-infested shopping mall, with the help of a NASCAR-ish stock car. The Passing attempts to create a bridge between the mall and the Dark Carnival levels, with middling success.

The level itself is pretty awesome. It’s a very short ride (as I stated earlier, only 3 chapters instead of the expected 4 or 5), but it’s never a boring one. The action is nonstop, and the finale is among the series’ most intense. (i.e. more than one occurrence of the rare sentence “OH MY GOD HERE COME TWO MORE TANKS.”) The Passing also sports some cool set pieces (zombie wedding, anyone?). But overall, this level brings very little new content to an already bloated title.

The foot lockers, which can be easily uncovered and contain a TON of one specific item (i.e. pipe bombs, pills, or molotovs), are pleasing on an aesthetic level, but in terms of usage are damn near pointless. Why would I care about a box of 90 bottles of pills, when I can only carry one bottle at a time? These lockers are completely useless, no matter how you spin it.

Another addition to the game with this DLC is the M60 machine gun. Granted, it is awesome to be able to carry around a giant gun in the zombie apocalypse. But this gun is worthless. It is among the most inaccurate weapons in the game, comes with a limited amount of ammo, and it fires WAY too fast. This gun is cool for coolness sake alone, but I constantly found myself passing up the chance to wield it.

All in all, we (Jeff and I) had a blast playing through The Passing. And it was nice to see the survivors from the first game making cameos in the finale. It’s a fun level, but nowhere near as memorable as Dark Carnival or Hard Rain. If you’re a die-hard Left 4 Dead fan (like yours truly), it’s definitely worth your 7 bucks. And the new set of achievements might reel in a couple of you stragglers. But to the casual Left 4 Dead player, this DLC can simply be considered Dead on Arrival.