I love this DLC prequel faaaar more than the base game. For starters, the story was very interesting and the pacing felt very nice. The combat was far more enjoyable than the base game with the vanguard and rear guard formation. Aside from combat, there were a bunch of noticeable QoL improvements in the world exploration. One example being collection points actually specifying the type of materials it will give you. The side quests were actually digestible and felt worth the time I invested in doing them. The community tab felt like a nice call back to the affinity chart from XC1 with it growing as you interact with/help more people and it was a nice way of giving the world life. The last piece of praise I'd like to give this is the voice acting. The voice acting in this is actually pretty well done and not as comically bad as the base game's was. Overall, I'd recommend people play this after they play through the base game of XC2 despite it being a prequel because it's a much more enjoyable experience overall.