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Three months into Destiny's projected 10-year lifespan and there seem to be as many people burned out by its protracted grind as there are in thrall to it. The Dark Below, Bungie's first significant expansion for the game, isn't going to change that. It's not an overhaul in the style of Blizzard's ground-shaking expansions, or an introduction of new, exciting systems that can win back those who have turned their backs on the game. It is, instead, a sliver of content gently inserted into the existing world, prolonging that grind in a way that will delight as many as those who will despair. There's no quick fix to some of Destiny's well-established problems. The story, delivered by a new vendor in the Tower named Eris, benefits from a clear through-line running across the new missions - you're hunting down the Hive Witch Omnigul, tracking her from beneath the Earth's Cosmodrome to the moon - but it's still muddy and cold.
The missions themselves, while moving away from the rightly derided standard of deploying your AI partner Ghost and then defending him against wave after wave of enemies, do nothing significantly new. There's a thin gesture towards the more varied mechanics used in the raids when, in the first new mission, you're struck by a curse that disables your boost jump, but beyond that it's the same noisy pursuit many players will be familiar - or, indeed, over-familiar - with already.
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