About the DLC and difficulty

[Inspiral]

Because of a severe visual impairment I mostly suck at games nowadays, so I was pleasantly surprised to finish the campaign (on Easy, obviously). I've since finished Terror Lab and Blood Count and started Deeper Than Hell... And oh man, I'm really struggling with Deeper Than Hell. It feels like I'm playing Horde mode. My question is: is this just a difficulty spike and things will settle down again, or does the DLC get progressively harder?

[icardias]

I think difficulty is subjective, are you sure you put easy 1 player setup? And perk wise you could use the damage reduction ones, the selfrevive and revive with Full health

[gimisum]

What are you struggling with in Deeper Than Hell? Any specifics? I recall those skeletons being a PITA if you don't have at least one rapid fire weapon in your loadout (and play solo).

Anyway, I would say that the following DLCs aren't any harder, rather well balanced IMO. I hope you make your way through Deeper Than Hell (or skip it if you own the other maps) because I think the DLC maps are all a blast - with Deeper Than.. being eventually one of the lesser "good". Especally those Alpine ones and the two more open worldish ones.

Not sure what "visual impairment" really means but probably stay away from the very last DLC which is extremely dark (visually) in most parts.

[Inspiral]

Thanks, gimisum, thanks for the detailed response. It's good to hear the later DLC chapters don't necessarily get harder. I found the last part of the first mission in Deeper Than Hell overwhelming with suiciders coming from all directions, a heavy gunner and three generals to deal with, as well as enraged zombies, armoured giants, grunts and creepers. After a frustrating amount of attempts I scraped through only to die constantly in the early stages of the second mission, but maybe a change of loadout will help. To be honest I've been too disheartened to try. Cramped and dark locations are really tough for me but if some of the later chapters are more open then I will consider buying them and skipping Deeper Than Hell for the time being.

[gimisum]

You may want to skip on Damnation Valley too then as I think it got rather tight and cramped spots as well (not as many as Deeper.. got though). But it's been a while since I played it so I may be off a bit - it's a great mission IMO but probably doesn't fit your preferences.

If you like the base game as much as it sounds you should definitely check out Alpine Blitz and the one afterwards, forgot the name. which are as linear as the general maps are but have a great setting imo and nice set pieces.

The Terminal Error one is bascially one huge open battlefield so that might be exactly your cup of tea. I love that map.
If you have an issue with dark, cramped settings stay clear of the very last mission DLC, Back to Hell or however it's called, it's extremely dark and extremely cramped all of the time.