I gave Grand Theft Auto IV a relatively low score because while it was a decent game, the PC version being sold on Steam is player-unfriendly to the point of alienation. With The Lost and Damned, you don't have to worry about that. It gets a low score simply because it's pure and utter horseshit.

Mate, what a terrible expansion pack. They made the effort to fix the godawful motorcycle controls the original game had, and then stopped. Liberty City has never felt more like Detroit, Michigan a barren wasteland than in this lame ass motorcycle riding simulator. Christ, I get it, you fucking fixed the motorcycle controls, that's not reason to surgically graft the motorcycle onto my fucking character, making you fail most missions automatically if your bike gets damaged. I thought Grand Theft Auto was about stealing any vehicle you wanted?

And what a character he is. What characters they all are. Great crime stories often show us that while the thug life may look flashy and glamorous, it can only end with you six feet under or behind bars. The Lost and Damned takes a different approach to dissuade kids from a life of petty thievery: it makes being an outlaw biker just look so fucking embarrassing. It made me have second thoughts about Sons of Anarchy being one of my favourite TV shows, because it makes motorcycle gangsters look like manchildren. Every cutscene has the detestable cast getting in each others' faces - we get the point okay, they're all alpha males because they smoke unfiltered cigarettes and say 'fuck you,' in every sentence, ever heard of subtlety? When you fight against rival gangs, they toss playground insults like 'losers' (a very creative twist on the gang being called Lost) and 'deadbeats' (an equally profound mockery of Angels of Death). When two skinny cops get one over on these skinhead shitheads, they whine, "It's because of these guys that I joined the Lost!" Boo fucking hoo. Go tell your big brother, Johnny, I'm sure you still think he can beat police officers up for you.

Levelheaded players who have not been exposed to this rancid bucket of manure may argue that the story isn't quite so important when the gameplay is enjoyable. Ooooh, sit down sonny boy, and let me tell you about the gameplay. Every single fucking mission has you drive across the city - recycled and stripped bare of most of the side activities that were available in the original game - shoot a bunch of NPCs, refuse to elaborate, and leave. It's so mindlessly repetitive and because of the poorly paced, distilled cringefest of a storyline, there's little incentive to do so. I did half the missions in this expansion pack hoping it would be over quickly. I think I dozed off at one point, despite this being one of the few days where I got a full night's sleep. It didn't matter; you don't need your cerebral hemispheres to play this game - just the medulla will do. Finally, exhausted, I checked the mission list online, saw I still had half of them left, and gave it up as a bad job.

I used to think outlaw bikers were cool. After playing The Lost and Damned, all I can say is: lose the kutte and get a job, assholes.