Call of Duty: Blacks Ops - Downloadable Content "First Strike" Information and Speculation

Treyarch, the creator of Call of Duty: Black Ops, has generally been known for pleasing their customers. For example, in their previous game, Call of Duty: World at War, they threw players an additional map for free - Makin Day. Although this was the same map as one already in the game, just at a different point of time in the day, it was still something, which is hard to come by these days where video game companies are looking to milk every penny out of players.

But with Black Ops things may be different since the game has been slightly broken since it's initial release. Lag has run rampant throughout many games, there's a huge problem with hit detection that is detrimental to game play, and I've encountered so many glitches that it's hard to believe that this game generated over $1 Billion in revenue. There have been times in the map Nuketown where my care packages, despite the smoke marker being in the map, would be dropped way outside of the map. For a awhile there had been a "Golden Gun" glitch, a glitch to get pro perks and all guns at levels in which they were unacquirable, and a major problem with the knifing system when the game first came out. Is Activision and Treyarch forgetting about the players? Are they trying to just rush these large-scale projects to make a pretty penny?

Despite all of these problems (and I am sure there are more to come) I know that people will buy the downloadable content, even if it has a price tag of $15 (which is equivalent to $3 a map). In this downloadable content there will be no additional guns, perks, attachments, customization variables (Example: reticle styles and colors), single player content, or Dead Ops content added. However, there will be a grace period where players with Silver Memberships will be able to play online as if they had Gold Memberships for X-Box Live.

Here's a list of what will be available in the downloadable content:

Multiplayer Maps
-Discovery - Antarctic German research station, abandoned from World War II. Generally snow maps aren't the players favorite (Example: Array), so this may be the map that everyone dislikes. However, this has been proven wrong in the past.

-Kowloon - Inspired from the single-player campaign based off of Kowloon city in China. Since this is a rooftop map, the playable tactics may be reminiscent of the map "Highrise" from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

-Stadium - Hockey rink in northeastern United States. This is a very unique idea, and I am anticipating how this'll work out overall.

-Berlin Wall - Takes place at Checkpoint Charlie. Is a battle between East and West Berlin. I am assuming that this will be a completely divided map with two sides, with the addition of some holes or other means to get from side to side.

Zombie Map
-Ascension -- The new zombie map. It is said that there will be some new additions. Honestly, to me, zombies don't feel the same as they did back in Call of Duty: World at War. I feel as if they've tried to many zombies too complex, whereas the first map ever was simple, yet the most fun.

That's all of the downloadable content - multiplayer maps and a single zombie map.

In the past, Call of Duty has done a terrible job at producing downloadable content that correlates properly with it's price tag. It's up the consumers whether they truly want to purchase overpriced digital content. Usually the maps in downloadable content (I've downloaded them all since Call of Duty: World at War) are hit or miss - some being atrocious, as if they had been thrown together by a child, and others being the cream of the crop.

This downloadable content is set to be released on February 1st, 2011 for a total of $15 (1200 Microsoft Points).

Source: "Call of Duty: Black Ops 'First Strike' Details" - http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/114/1140985p1.html