The story in Broken Steel picks up at the end of the main quest in Fallout 3. Many were saddened that there was a full stop ending to the game and so Bethesda has changed that with this download. Shortly after the events that end the main quest, Broken Steel picks up, thereby removing any true ending and allowing the player to continue exploring the wasteland and work towards that new level cap.
If you haven't completed the game yet, it might be best to stop reading this now and go finish so as not to spoil things.
After a somewhat awkward transition from the end of Fallout 3 to the new Broken Steel content, you'll find your character back in the Citadel and ready to get back to questing and exploring. Though Project Purity was a success and clean water is flowing, the war between the Enclave and the Brotherhood is not over. And without a plumbing system, there's that whole issue of distributing the fresh water throughout the wastes. This is where you come in for a series of three extensive main quests and a few new sidequests.
Most of this adventure takes place within the Capital Wasteland which won't do anything for anybody burnt out on the muted grays and browns that are so pervasive in Fallout 3. There are a few great set pieces including the return of Liberty Prime and a quest that brings you to the new Adams Air Force Base location. These new quests are a lot of fun and offer more of those morally gray decisions with far-reaching consequences that make Fallout 3 so memorable.
Playing through the new content took me roughly seven hours which is a bit longer than the past Fallout 3 add-ons. Along the way, you'll find a few new enemies and a few new weapons to deal with them. The new Tesla Canon must be the most powerful weapon in the game yet, capable of taking down Vertibirds and most any enemy in a single shot. There's also the Heavy Incinerator that spits long range balls of fire. Fire that baby up in VATS for a great looking kill. These new toys and the hours of gameplay would be enough to satisfy many and that isn't even getting into the feature that has Fallout 3's hardcore fans so excited.
For many, the most important feature in Broken Steel will be the lift in the level cap from 20 to 30. Anybody that has spent a lot of time in the Capital Wasteland knows that it is quite easy to hit level 20 long before you see everything. By lifting the cap an additional 10 levels, Bethesda has provided a great reason to go back and take care of any unfinished business you might have in terms of side quests or general exploring. I've found the reintroduction of leveling and experience rewards enough to get me excited about playing Fallout 3 well beyond the Broken Steel quest lines. Making things even better is Bethesda's decision to release the Broken Steel DLC first on PS3. Xbox 360 and PC gamers got Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt before Broken Steel, squandering gamers' opportunities to work towards level 30 while playing new content (specifically in terms of The Pitt.) PS3 gamers don't have to worry about that. The Pitt, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta, all leveling-intensive, are still forthcoming.
The lift in the level cap isn't a superficial change either. Three new achievements exist for reaching the new level cap -- one each for good, evil and neutral karma. New perks have been included as well. Though they aren't as imaginative as some of originals, they will help players who feel they've made a mistake in the past. One allows you to get Dogmeat back anytime your dog companion dies. Another will turn every 10 bottles of Nuka Cola you collect into a Quantum. You can even snag some at the higher levels that will reset your karma to whatever extreme you'd like.
Of course, I'm of the opinion that players shouldn't be required to pay in order to gain this level cap lift. Together with the new quests, it makes for quite the attractive package, but a level cap adjustment is the sort of thing that should be made available to everybody at no cost.
Colin's Take of the PlayStation 3 Version
The tumultuous and inconsistent experience I had with Broken Steel on the PS3 necessitated this slight addition to Erik's otherwise spot-on review, which we drew from the Xbox 360 release several months ago. As someone who has played through Broken Steel in its entirety on 360 for our guide, I can tell you with certainty that the PS3 version is far more buggy and prone to problems than its 360 counterpart, at least in my experience.
Unfortunately, it's hard to pinpoint the perceived origin of these problems. Briefly scouring several forums on the web has shown me that some people have found even more problems with it than I did. And others still played through Broken Steel with nary an issue popping up, suggesting that it can't possibly be an issue with the downloaded file. For me, the problems were many. For Fallout 3, however, this inconsistency in experience seems to be par for the course.
Some of the problems I encountered were mild. There were considerable dips in framerate, especially during the early-going, and the game would outright stutter at times. Some voice tracks would start after a person's mouth had already been moving, creating awkward situations where something is still being spoken for five seconds even after the character's lips had stopped moving.
However, the issues weren't limited only to the aesthetics. The game froze multiple times on me, including three times at the same exact point, when I was trying to go back into the Citadel after the second of the three main quests in Broken Steel were completed. I also experienced problems with both my own team and enemy squads. My team would remain fixated on random enemies in both the attack on the Jefferson Memorial and, later, near the end of Broken Steel when you're at Adams Air Force Base. They would refuse to continue until sometimes three or four of my comrades were huddled around the same enemy, incapable of actually killing said foe. Meanwhile, Liberty Prime and myself were way, way ahead of them (in the former example, anyway). I never experienced this problem, having beaten the game four times now.
In terms of enemy squads, I found that there were times when nearby enemies wouldn't react to my presence until they actually saw me. Even if there was a heated gunfight involving multiple enemies in the same room, until the enemies laid eyes on me upon my moving into the subsequent room, they wouldn't move or pull out a weapon and fight. It was a strange issue, and while it wasn't one I experienced more than a few times, it's certainly the first time I saw these issues in the game. The AI is supposed to hear gunfire and commotion happening ten feet from them, but in those cases, they were none the wiser.
I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours with Fallout 3. I beat the game twice on PlayStation3 for our guide last year, and have played through each and every piece of DLC on Xbox 360, also for our guide. I know the game pretty well at this point. My experience with Broken Steel on PS3 was, at best, mixed. It got pretty clean to the point of no problems by the end, but at that point, I had already run the gamut of issues pertaining to the DLC.
Is this just an example of Fallout 3 being Fallout 3? It could be. But we'd be loath not to inform you that our experience with the DLC simply wasn't as clean as it should have been, and that you very well may run into the same problems. Then again, you may not. Welcome to the world of Fallout 3.