Expansions that are better than the main game

[Vlajdermen]

Let me get the obvious out of the way: Mask of the Betrayer and Lord of Destruction.

One that comes to my mind is Hearts of Stone. It's kinda short but it has a better story and better bosses. Not that many side quests, but I can live with that.

 

[2house2fly]

Blood And Wine had some improvements on the main game too

 

[Lahey]

Brood War.
Frozen Throne.
Shivering Isles.
Artorias of the Abyss.
Reaper of Souls.

 

[Jokzore]

Tales of the Sword Coast for BG1
Ringed City and Painted World for Dark Souls 3
Literally any DLC for any of the BioWare or Bethesda games, the bar is set pretty low for them.
DLC for New Vegas

in fact DLC for most games is better than the vanilla experience (challenge and costume bullshit excluded).
Probably because the devs aren't worried about stretching the game far beyond its natural length and just focus on making whatever they wanna make.

 

[Projas]

NWN: HotU
SoZ and MoW were also both better than the NWN 2 OC

 

[Lilura]

Night of the Raven for Gothic 2.

 

[Vlajdermen]

Brood War.
Frozen Throne.
Shivering Isles.
Artorias of the Abyss.
Reaper of Souls.

Yeah I've heard a lot of great things about Shivering isles. Is it as good as Morrowind?

 

[fobia]

Night of the Raven for Gothic 2.

I would argue that the expansion is not better than the main game, but what it adds into the main game and the changes to costs of the... fuck.. whatevever Lernpunkte are, learning points I guess, yeah, that was also good. It's an awesome enhancement of the main game.

 

[octavius]

Opposing Force.

 

[Morality Games]

Agree with above. Will add Diablo II: Lords of Destruction.

Know what I will never add? Throne of Bhaal.

EDIT:

OIC. The OP mentioned Lords of the Destruction.

 

[Mastermind]

Reaper of Souls for D3 was a huge step up.

 

[Lahey]

Yeah I've heard a lot of great things about Shivering isles. Is it as good as Morrowind?

No, just slightly better than Oblivion. Gameplay was identical but the storyline was slightly more intriguing, and after shutting >9000 gates in the base game fetch quests for a daedric lord look pretty good in comparison.

 

[Mastermind]

Brood War.
Frozen Throne.
Shivering Isles.
Artorias of the Abyss.
Reaper of Souls.

Yeah I've heard a lot of great things about Shivering isles. Is it as good as Morrowind?

it doesn't really fix any of the core issues with oblivion but the worldbuilding is much better than vanilla oblivion (as in, they hired more than one guy to do all the environment and dungeons).

 

[Abu Antar]

I added games from the OP, sue me.
Gothic 2: Night of the Raven
Mask of The Betrayer
Diablo II: Lords of Destruction
Storm of Zehir
Pillars of Eternity - The White March I&2
The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone
Shadows of Undrentide
Hordes of the Underdark
Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

Are some examples.

 

[octavius]

HoMM 2 and 3's expansions had better campaigns than the original game. Especially Restoration of Erathia was a bland and too easy campaign.

 

[Trashos]

DLC for New Vegas

I could see people considering Dead Money and Old World Blues to be even better than New Vegas itself (each for its own reasons). Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road are inferior to the main game, afaic.

 

[Siveon]

Shadowrun Returns - Dragonfall.

Dragonfall wasn't an expansion, it was more or less a sequel.

 

[shihonage]

Cataclysm


ahahahahahhaah just kidding

 

[Forest Dweller]

Blood And Wine had some improvements on the main game too

And it was the better of the two DLC. Not sure why people are saying Hearts of Stone instead.

 

[Sensuki]

AoE2: The Conquerors

 

[V_K]

Brood War.
Frozen Throne.
Shivering Isles.
Artorias of the Abyss.
Reaper of Souls.

Yeah I've heard a lot of great things about Shivering isles. Is it as good as Morrowind?

Depends on what your criteria are. SI has some of the best dungeons TES ever had since Daggerfall. World-building is on par with MW (albeit at a much smaller scale), but mechanically it's still Oblivion (except for some unique dungeon-specific stuff).

 

[laclongquan]

Baldur's Gate 1: Siege of Dragonspear

Spoiler

Just kidding! Never play that before. But Tales of the Sword Coast for BG1 is such a good chunks of hours pleasant spent~

 

[ilitarist]

Right, the DLC for Dark Souls 2!

Crown of the Sunken King especially. Superb level design, arguably the high point of the entire franchise.

Is it a widespread opinion?.. I dropped DS2 on the second expansion (the one with towers) and I remember completing the Sunken King feeling it's just OK. The final dragon fight was awesome but I didn't care for other parts of it. When I look back at DS2 I remember sinking cathedrals and lava fortress and Drangelic castle. not the DLC stuff.

As for the expansions - FNV expansions where all better than the main game due to focused nature. Maybe Honest Hearts was weaker but it's probably cause thematically I didn't care much about preaching to natives. Same for White March, obviously.

Other than that good RPG expansions are usually integrated into the world and can't be separated that easily. Like Night of the Raven - Gothic 2 is better with it but so what.

It's more interesting to talk about expansions that make base game worse. Like Tribunal for Morrowind that gives you an easy way to get one of the best light armor in the game as well as steady source of income.

 

[Carrion]

I'll have to disagree on the New Vegas DLC. The most impressive aspects of New Vegas were its scope and the sheer amount of different ways to finish the game, and while the DLC obviously had some strengths of their own, none of them offered the same amount of freedom, reactivity or support for different builds as the main game did.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Baldur's Gate 1: Siege of Dragonspear


Just kidding! Never play that before. But Tales of the Sword Coast for BG1 is such a good chunks of hours pleasant spent~

Oh man, I literally stayed up all last night playing Tales of the Sword Coast even though I need to work today. I never played the expansion when it was new, but I picked up all the enhanced editions (on sale, on my tablet) a few months ago and I can't believe how good TotSC is. Definitely improves upon the base game.

Spoiler

I think I was almost done clearing out Balduran island by the time I had to go to work. It took me over an hour to beat the boss werewolf on the wrecked ship with a level ~7ish party, which made it unusually challenging compared to the base game. I love it when these DnD encounters require lots of forethought. And then I was blown away when I got back to the "good" village and they all turned on me. I think old Bioware did an amazing job of foreshadowing here: enough hints to realize something was messed up and suspect they're also werewolves, but not so much that it spoils the surprise.