Expansions should be improvements on the base game, you say. The whole point of them is that they're adding cool new stuff, and the same game with a bunch of cool new stuff added should always be better. Except often that isn't the case.
The list of add-ons that feel like they misunderstood what made the original good, or dragged it out unnecessarily, or were just sort of fine in a "second helping of the same meal" kind of way, is a long one.
The lists of expansions that were genuinely better than the game they were expanding in the first place is much less long. It's like 10 things tops, and these are those 10 things.
Dishonored
The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches
You can understand why Arkane thought Dishonored needed a silent protagonist. You've got a whole arsenal of tools and powers to approach problems with, and players should feel free to use the whole box instead of being constrained by questions like, "What would Corvo do?" But even without a voice players projected a persona onto Corvo, one that was at odds with the ability to possess a guard, walk him up to an electric Wall of Light, then exit just before that guard stumble...


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