Well, kinda-sorta. Lets face it, since the PS2 came on to the scene and had games requiring hard drives, DLC or it's equivalents have been on the scene and driving hard into the minds and wallets of gamers. Now you're probably thinking or going to call me on expansion packs, but that's a different ball game together which I will tackle later.
So about this DLC thing and why I'm not liking it too much, basically, because in many ways it's beginning to cheapen gaming. It's beginning to give this impression that games are in the most part incomplete and you're now missing out on the complete experience. Lets take Fallout 3 as an example and we'll compare it to Oblivion.
Now if you don't know, as is Fallout 3 took the WoW stance on leveling and has levels capped at 20 (and it's not very hard to hit that cap). Now when I was playing Fallout and didn't know about this cap, it was a shock and disappointment, I felt that many avenues were suddenly closed to me and further more that decisions I made earlier were mistakes that would hamper my playing now. It's not impossible to max-out some stats when you hit the cap, it's just tedious. Oblivion on the other hand, it took hours and days to max out level skills / player level. Further more the new DLC didn't lift said cap. Knights of the Nine and Shivering isles were a good expansions, but not requirements to enhance the experience of the original Oblivion.
Now Fallout 3 is a complete game (or is it?) having played through it, but with the announcement of this new DLC / the continuation of the game, it seems very much like they didn't want to really include a full experience. It's almost as if they're telling games 'Oh right, didn't feel satisfied with the $70 version, well, give us another $20 and we'll make it complete this time.'
Valve has done this as well with Half-Life 2. To be fair, they're calling it episodic, but it's unfair that every 18ish months we have to pay out $30-40 for 5-7 hours of game time. For episodes they're taking a long time and in reality it could probably take less time and gain a better experience for the gamer if they went to the drawing boards and made a HL3 instead of another flashy side quest of Gordon Freeman.
Now don't get me wrong, there's nice DLC that gets you nifty little add-ons and is as most dlc should be, free as a gift / reward for purchasing the game, but I feel as if gone are the days of Expansions which really were a game on their own with a proper story and had proper development to it.
All and all I don't hate DLC, but I see it becoming problematic when it's used by developers to try and justify their existence / do as minimal work possible for the greatest profit possible, simply because at the end of the day a lot of people are going to catch on and being to wonder why they're paying full price for a game when they're getting only half of one. Lets be honest with ourselves; successful games get squels.
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The thing with Fallout 3 is that the content is exclusive, and we don't know the details of this exclusivity. Assuming it involved Microsoft and a lot of money, maybe they paid to have the 'complete' version of the game? I'm sure there is a lot of talk going on behind closed doors and it isn't just: "How much?".
The DLC content I have problems with is the content you know was already made/being made when the game released. It hasn't happened recently, but I know there's been a few games that have shipped and when you purchase DLC you get a "key" and that allows you to have the hidden content already in the game, instead of actual new content.
And Epic releasing new maps for Gears 2 a mere few weeks after release. There's no way I'm falling victim to that trap, and not only that I've become completely turned off by the game because of it. Good job, Epic.
Finish the game. When the game is confirmed to be good, then work on extra content. I'd rather it be free, but of course it would only make sense to end this comment with another jab at M$.
For me it entirely depends on the price, timing and content of the DLC. There's no magic number or answer to those that works for everyone though and no developer is really going to give an honest answer on when they started working on the DLC content. To be fair, the DLC content could be started before the game is released, because there are staff members during the final stages of game production that aren't needed and begin new projects (including DLC for the game that isn't released yet).
My general guideline though is.... at least 1-2 months.... that way I've had a chance to beat the game and it doesn't feel like I just dropped $60 for the game only to have to drop more. As far as price goes, I don't like paying anything more than $10. However, even $10 is a stretch for me for most of the content that I've seen put out to date.
Ultimately the value of DLC comes down to how much I enjoy the game. If I love the game, DLC is generally worth it and a good idea. It extends the life of the game for me. With development cycles taking years to complete, it's nice to not have to wait for the sequel to get additional content.