I have to agree with you here. I have a whole lot of extra content for DAO that I am not garenteed will always be available. Give me something I can keep and load and have control over.

GTA4's DLC wasn't the penny grabbing bullshit that most companies make, they were full on oldschool expansions. They're an example of DLC done right. Sadly we're talking about EA who sell super guns for dead space in case playing on hard is actually hard...

Nowadays I only see DLC and never see official expansion packs anymore really. Poor trend IMO, shoddy DLC's can get away with low quality because they're 'cheap' anyway, but stack up 5 of them for $30 and it won't compare to a classic expansion pack like Brood War or MW4: Mercenaries, heck Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds had a good expansion that added storyline, campaigns, and two more sides to play even though the base game was mediocre.
EDIT: Anyone try the new Borderlands DLC? I heard good and bad about it, want a good opinion.

Another reason why I'll wait for a "Gamez of da year with double goldish diamond edition" to buy Dragon Age or any good game EA could manage to do, hopefully there aren't that much.

Oh great. More games like Dragon Age that leave me waiting for the GoTY...

That's assuming they will actually continue making hard copy GotY/Gold/Platinum/Diamond/Unobtanium editions anymore and even if they do, will they still be worth it?

There's no way this is going to do anything but screw us. Yeah, it could be great, but it's not going to be.

Heh, I will happily pirate everything I can as I usual do for the EA shit. Nothing new under the sun.....

I am opposed to bad new games, not all new games. Unfortunately when it comes to PC games, "bad" is pretty much the standard these days (with increasingly rare exceptions). Switching to a system of all episodic-type games just give the devs/publishers license to slack off more than they already have and push out even more incomplete crappy games that they, in the long term, will end up charging us more for. Just look at the previously mentioned Half-Life 2; the initial game was great, but once they went episodic, not so much. The first episode was OK, the second was barely a tech demo teaser and now how long have we been waiting for the promised third chapter? 2 years? I would have preferred that they forego the episodic method entirely and just focused all their efforts on making a true sequel or expansion to the game that is actually worth me spending my money on, instead of this lazy piecemeal type of game development that only gives me a portion of a game that they then over-charge for.
BTW - The popularity of those types of games probably has much more to do with the fact that devs just stopped making other kinds since it is easier to slap together a MP shoot-em-up than it is to actually put some creative effort into a decent single-player game. That and it is much easier to sucker people into buying things like half-assed DLC for those games than it is for a decent and deep single-player game. Its the horrifying combination of developer laziness and publisher greed, pure and simple.

I think it's a matter of taste. I preferred Episode 1 & 2 to Half-Life 2. They felt much more focused to me.

Ep2 was awesomeness. Loved the antlion raid where they ran at you in tunnels, need a gamemode based on that. I still don't have hopes for Ep3 anymore and am not waiting. I'll just get it if it comes out sometime. If.
Petition maybe?

Yeah, Ep1 and Ep2 were great.
That being said: You argue that they don't finish games and will continue to not finish games. Again, that doesn't really make THIS any worse, it just means that you don't like the current status quo.
As for over-charging: That really depends on the game. That being said: If you don't think a game is worth the price they are asking, don't buy it. I will probably grab the latest two Call of Duty games when they are around 20 (likely through a sale). Neither is worth 50 in my eyes. So, no big deal.
And maybe it would help if you looked at it this way: Maybe the reason that so many devs are pushing "incomplete" games (honestly, I haven't really run into too many of those, with a few very rare exceptions) is because they don't have time. The episodic/DLC-based route stretches out dev time. So they can focus on one area and make it great, then focus on the next and release it a month or two later. Will this work with every game? Nope.
I dunno, I still get the vibe that you are more disenfranchised with the current status quo and your perception of "incomplete" games as opposed to the actual approach itself.

Wrong. For todays management, cutting costs is everything. So you got that initial sales and some bad word-of-mouth because of technical problems? Crap, release the already finished DLCs then cut the whole thing and move on.
Let's stay for a moment with EA and their new approach. Ricchitello claims it's part of fighting piracy - I call that straight up bulls**it. It's to get their hands on the second market and nothing else and I don't see, why they should profit there again.
They sell a product full price. Now I'll buy some DLCs for that product too. A year later I'm selling that game to some other guy but I'm stuck with my investment on the DLCs for eternity, without any use or the ability to resell it for me? Now why THAT shall be a good thing is beyond me.
This approach isn't for the gamer or costumer, it's for company top-tiers who think their new 10 million crib needs a bit more improvement.
Even though EA is the culprit here, I'm far from trying to bash them. But blaming piracy for ridiculous limitations paying costumers have to endure, all the while their trying to get a few bucks more out of you, isn't really new or EA exclusiv.
Take digital distribution for another example. You cut costs on a printed manual, a retail box, 2 or 3 resellers between you and the costumer.... yet the price stays the same or is even higher then buying it from your local retailer?
The whole gaming industry seems to take the same road the music biz went - on the fast lane.

Which is why the majority of music sales are older music / replacments and why we need GOG