The first three DLC packs for Gears of War 3 seem to each have been created with different players in mind. "Horde Command" was obviously aimed at fans of Horde mode, and the fact that all three of the new maps in this first DLC pack were later bundled for free with remakes of two maps from the original Gears of War suggests the lasting value of the pack lay in the fortification upgrades. The second DLC pack, "Raam’s Shadow," was geared towards campaign fans, and now "Fenix Rising" (available for 800 Microsoft Points, or $10) seems aimed directly at Gears 3's online multiplayer die-hards.

Five new multiplayer maps make up the bulk of the new content in this DLC offering, and each one is designed to represent a distinct stage in the journey of series protagonist Marcus Fenix. While all five maps are playable in Versus, Horde, and Beast modes, we focused mainly on Versus mode in our testing.

The Academy map is reminiscent of the city environments in the first Gears of War, offering a large, detailed environment that offers the package's greatest variety of viable tactics. Depths is a gorgeous map set in an underwater portion of the COG island refuge of Azura. It favors mid- and short-range combat but also presents ample opportunities for long-range work, and a raised center position provides a nice, strong focal point for players to fight over.

Aside from those two standouts, though, the rest of the new selection are not as strong. Anvil, a mid- to short-range map where you'll need to have your shotgun at the ready, is not nearly as interesting visually, and the design lends itself to spawn-trapping on the Barracks side. Escalation is a map from the original Gears of War set in the front yard of the Fenix Estate, pre-Emergence Day. It's a very narrow map with long, clear lines of sight for sniping, but spawn points at the top and bottom of the map can lead to frustrating situations where players are flanked by respawning enemies from the rear. Finally, the Slab has mid-range lines of sight, but matches there play out almost exclusively in close-quarters combat against the sort of drab grey/brown color scheme you'd expect from a prison environment.

Fenix Rising also adds a few minor tweaks outside of the new maps. The four extra skins that come packaged with the DLC are probably not a selling point in and of themselves, though those that weren't able to get Thrashball Cole and Savage Kantus by other means can get them here.

The DLC also includes a new "Re-up" feature that allows veteran Gears 3 players who have maxed out at Level 100 to reset their experience without affecting their TrueSkill matchmaking data (re-upped players appear in different colors on matchmaking screens, so you can't pretend you're a newbie). Re-upped players can unlock one of three new weapon skins for each time they claw their way back to Level 100, which should keep players obsessed with online bragging rights busy for quite a while.

The new DLC is also required if you want to play in the new Stay Frosty playlists, which also include a number of pre-Fenix Rising maps. This new mode limits your default weapon selections to the Hammerburst and Snub Pistol, both set to ridiculously high damage settings -- just two pistol headshots will result in a kill, for instance. The new Fenix Rising maps appear much less frequently as options during regular Ranked matches, so players that have grown tired of the old maps might want to wait for a dedicated Fenix Rising playlist.

If you’re addicted to Gears 3 multiplayer then this package is definitely a great value. If you were already patient enough to wait for a review like this one, though, it might be worth waiting to see whether the maps come out for free later on, since only two of the five maps really made a strong impression.

Dennis Scimeca is a freelance journalist from Boston, MA. His weekly video game opinion column, First Person, runs Thursdays on The Escapist. You can reach him through his blog, Punching Snakes, or follow his random excitations on Twitter: @DennisScimeca.