Hell yes! I admired the team (especially Levine) for understanding the issues and working to fix them, but to go above and beyond that and give us a little something extra? That's the way the developers-fans relationship should be.
I didn't notice any serious bugs, unless there either weren't any or that only applies to the PC version. Cool, nontheless.
New plasmids? umm... wow? I'm not impressed by this at all. People want new levels, not a few extra features put into a tired game that has virtually no replay value. Oh well, so long as it's free, can't go wrong really. Just would've liked something more.
I'm not really impressed either. To be honest, I wasn't highly impressed with the game. I was bored a lot of the time I played it. It did have a great storyline though...but like you said, it has little-to-no replay value at all.
I understand what you're saying, but it's not as if that didn't occur to me, and it's not as if it's never been done. The absolute easiest way is putting in a non-canon extra chapter or two set in the same time frame. In the same way as some of those Resident Evil extras you get when finishing the game, or Snake Tales, just with new levels. Or, more easily, altered levels. My point is, i'm personally not exited about a few extra plasmids which, frankly should've been in the game in the first place as there were too few. Giving new plasmids without any new environments to use them in, or enemies to use them on seems like an excercise in pointlessness. Why bother adding something so insignificant when the opportunity to create something much greater could've been taken. Having said all that, I can redeem it simply using two words... horse armour.
I knew where you were coming from. I just took a stab at the idea. Seriously, Bioshock is not a game that can pull off the "new chapters" concept without ruining what was already a great game. It's a very straight-foreword story. You go in, you fight through and you get out. Adding chapters/extra levels doesn't make any sense. I mean, so now suddenly Atlas has you break a wall/find a key/discover a new passageway that sends you to new rooms with more enemies or something? You can't add any more Little Sisters without compromising gameplay... and there's nothing more that can be done environment-wise. Unlike Resident Evil, not only is this a singular title (as of right now), but also shows no room for possibility that Rapture continues after the initial events. Zombies are an inevitable. An undersea utopia? Not so much. Unless that means a surviving Splicer somehow gains the composure to take it over. But Jacks's already back on land. Adding new plasmids means new ways to play the game. I played and replayed Bioshock for months before it felt old at all. It's always nice to challenge yourself creatively. Defeat X number of Big Daddies without using plasmids on the hardest difficulty? How about doing it without relying on respawns? I could actually care less whether people find it exciting or not, but I did find it funny anyone would assume something Crackdown-esque would come for Bioshock.
I honestly would play through Bioshock again anyway if I hadn't only rented it, just to take a stab at finding all of the recordings by myself. Just like I'll go through The Darkness again to find all of the letters, phone numbers, side-missions and 300 hearts, now I've actually reached the end of the story.
Okay, so the plasmids are now available to the Xbox Live Silver members. My brother bought Bioshock the other day, so I've had a chance to play around with two of the new plasmids (Sonic Boom and Machine Buster). Machine Buster should be self-explanatory (increased damage against turrets, cameras, and bots), and Sonic Boom just throws your enemies back, allowing you to unload all hell while they get back up. I haven't tested it against a Big Daddy yet, though. EVE Saver (powers cost less) and Vending Expert (reduces prices in vending machines) should prove to be useful later on, and best of all, all new plasmids only cost one adam in-game. Is it worth it? I'd say so. Be sure to download this when you get the chance.