Resident Evil 5 has hit the shelves to unanimous acclaim from the industry’s critics and gaming journos but there is a blemish on this otherwise stellar release.

The DLC for the title has been given a price: $4.99 for the PS3 and XBOX 360. What you’ll get for your $5 is 2 modes. The first will allow 1 on 1 and 2 on 2 deathmatch and the other will see the player racking up as many points as possible by killing as many zombies in an allotted time.

Resident Evil 5 has some problems but overall I would say that its an engrossing and above all fun game that uses excellent presentation and cutting edge graphics and gameplay to pull the player into the game world.

However I can’t help but think that this “DLC” was just something that the developers yanked out at the last minute for the express purpose of selling it separately to increase their profits. Depending on the type of game, multiplayer should be included at no extra cost. Hijinx like this leave a sour taste in the mouth and tarnish an otherwise great game in the eyes of the gaming industry as a whole. Capcom could take a que from developers like Criterion and Valve who routinely put out quality content for them games at little to no cost. I understand that they are running a company and they have to make a profit to stay in business but that doesn’t mean that they have to gouge the very people that keep them afloat.

Let’s be honest here, $5 isn’t a lot of money, but what seems out of whack is the fact that this content is coming out very soon after the game is released leading us to believe it didn’t take them a lot of time outside of the development cycle to create, and that it’s only two modes, not a whole lot of replay value there. Plus the deathmatch mode seems like a tacked on afterthought. It fits into the game a like a round block in a square hole.

Editors Note 6:43 pm March 13 2009:

Capcom issued a press releasde today defending its DLC policy stating:

“Although Versus mode makes use of the assets that exist in the game, the functionality is not currently in the game and is above and beyond the initial scope of Resident Evil 5,” explained a company spokesperson to the website. “We have never included a Versus mode in Resident Evil before, and as well as the costs of development of the feature, there’s also additional bandwidth costs associated with it.”

What do you think? Should Capcom be charging for this content? Is the price that they charge a fair one? Let us know in the comments section below.

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