The Omega DLC was released last week, of course, with a shiny new launch trailer and a storied development history that resulted in it adding a whopping 4 hours of gameplay (and 2 GB of install footprint) to Mass Effect 3…no mean feat, to be sure. As DLC goes, that’s massive.

Reviews of Omega have been all over the map, bizarrely: Kotaku loved it, Eurogamer didn’t care for it, and GameFront gave it a middling score. GameInformer, in lieu of a review, enumerated some of the DLC’s pros and cons, and one consistent complaint that seems to run through most of the coverage is that Omega sticks very closely to the BioWare formula, and doesn’t offer much in the way of engine or gameplay innovations.

RPGSite’s review of Omega, while mostly positive, certainly notes some of the negative elements of the DLC, including the fact that unlike Leviathan, it does very little to alter the story of the game outside of itself.

The biggest kick in the teeth comes, I suppose, when you finish the DLC. Nothing changes. You gain some war assets, now bloody useless, especially as Bioware patched the requirement for the ‘best’ ending to be lower. You’d now probably have to try harder to get a bad ending, hilariously.

Which is funny to me, because that is actually the next playthrough I am contemplating doing.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, the Wii U port of Mass Effect 3 is evidently pretty solid.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still struggling with its free-to-play implementation, although BioWare Austin have tried to soothe some of the butthurt that has been expressed about the limitations imposed on free players by offering “preferred” players (those who’ve spent more than $5) extra quickbar slots. Which is…something. They’ve also added new areas and quests for subscribed players, and a new PvP warzone as well.

The game’s new(ish) lead writer, Hall Hood, also dropped some spoilers about upcoming plot points in future game updates, including something about the Hutt Cartels getting involved in the war between the Republic and the Sith. Oh, and some character called (the?) Shroud. There have also been some updates to the SWTOR.com developer blog, which discuss various other features of the game, both extant and upcoming.

Dragon Age 3 has evidently been delayed until 2014, ostensibly to allow the game to support upcoming next-gen consoles. Also, it should have less creepy sex plots…although whether you’ll be marching around Thedas with a statistically unlikely number of openly bisexual companions remains to be seen. (Honestly, I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to see Isabella ever again.)

Oh, and lead writer David Gaider has been sharing his thoughts on narrative design on Tumblr.