Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage DLC Hands-On Preview

Gearbox has thus far done a great job of supplying Borderlands 2 fans with DLC that's actually worth the price (Sharkey's a big fan of the last chunk, Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty). From what I played of the next chunk, Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage, it looks like the developers are determined to keep that up.
This time the excuse for general mayhem is that everyone's fighting to earn the privilege of opening a new vault, in an area affectionately dubbed as the Badass Crater of Badassitude. That's determined by the winner of a series of arena challenges, and the ones I was thrown into featured groups of enemies who wanted to kill each other just as much as they wanted to kill me.

Welcome to the Terror Dome

It sounds a bit like Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, the least well-received piece of original Borderlands DLC, but Gearbox says it's learned from that, and MTCoC isn't all arena combat.

Can we drive the Badassaurus Rex? Pleeease!

The enemies there didn't strike me as new or innovative, but they did strike me pretty hard.

Notably, in one in-between section my sponsor double-crossed me and forced me to fight my way out of a prison, then find a new sponsor. That search took me through a new dilapidated urban street area, which definitely didn't look like the other areas of Pandora I've seen thus far. The enemies there didn't strike me as new or innovative -- mostly the typical grunts, brutes, midgets, and occasional motorcycles -- but they did strike me pretty hard. It's hard to gauge the difficulty of the section I played, since it was as a pre-made character with pre-set weapons (and to be honest, most of BL2 is on my to-play list due to XCOM consuming my life, so I'm kinda a noob at this), but it definitely killed me a bunch.

Set course for the Badass Crater of Badassitude!

Gearbox says we will see some new enemies and boss fights, including a monster truck rally-inspired fire-breathing robot, and there'll be some new heads available for character customization. There are also new Torgue vending machines that only sell Torgue weapons and only take Torgue tokens earned in the arena fights, but will always offer a powerful legendary item as the deal of the day. And of course, there will be some new legendaries added to the mix.

Can I Quote You On That?

But the potential break-out star of this DLC is Mr. Torgue himself -- basically an insane parody of a pro wrestler who owns his own sci-fi weapons factory who's constantly shouting at you over the radio. He's hardly the only foul mouth in Borderlands 2, but he's the only one who's bleeped -- a random touch for comedic effect.

Are you ready to rock with Mr. Torgue?

The section I played, which is about a sixth to an eighth of the approximately six to eight hours Gearbox expects this DLC to last the average player, is packed with some great Torgue lines (perhaps the funniest I've heard in a game this year), and what better way to end this preview than to quote some? Of course, I'm going to label as SPOILERS for those who want to experience them in their intended shouted form.

"I'm here to ask you one question and one question only: EXPLOSIONS!"

"That sentence had too many syllables. Apologize!"

"You should go kill him and meet him, but not in that order!"

"Badass Crater of Badassitude!"

"I didn't want you to get bored, so I was like, BLEEP it, give everybody guns! We lost half of our workforce in three days, but who gives a BLEEP!"

"Is it just me, or does it seem like he's gonna betray the BLEEP outta you?"

Bonus spoiler: Gearbox says we can expect to see the return of Moxxi and Tiny Tina. You'll be able to see them again when Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage DLC arrives on November 20 for $10.