Just logged in here for the first time in years, to post something I originally posted on reddit.

BLUF: The DLC Cosmetics are extremely underwhelming, and are a massive missed opportunity for NWI. They (or their publisher) should look at MoH:W as an inspiration for future DLCs.

First off, I want to preface this by saying that I have bought all the dlc so far, including the season 2 pass, because I love this game and it's predecessor, and want to support the developers. My reason for bringing this up is that I can't imagine NWI is making much off of these DLCs (especially given the ridiculous pricing on console), and I would love to see more interesting skins and for NWI to succeed financially.

That being said, I almost never use any of the DLCs, neither the character cosmetics or the weapon skins. Starting with the weapon skins, most of them appear completely uninspired, and don't look like anything more than a basic texture applied uniformly over the weapon. Take the hunter skins for example. The skin is literally just a .png of leaves and green stuff put on the weapons. The same goes for the digital blue and red camos (which are both ugly as hell) and the new green skins. The desert skins and snow are both alright, but could have been done to a much higher level of quality. Just comparing the DLC skins to the default, the default skins are much more detailed. This can best be seen by comparing the areas affected by the skin with the areas left default (a good example is the desert skin for the M16A4), which looks very jarring and unrealistic.

As for the character cosmetics, they are much higher quality than the weapon skins, but I can't help but feel that NWI could easily find a ton of great source material by just looking on the internet. Instead, we have low texture blocky skins like the urban warden, and a bunch of repetitive masks for the Insurgents. Different types of chest rigs, body armor and backpacks haven't been done at all. It would be fantastic to have the option of a heavy insurgent backpack with RPG rockets sticking out, or a more high speed assault pack for the security light carrier.

The only analysis I can make is that NWI, or possibly their publisher, understood that the Chinese new year skins weren't going to work based upon the massive pushback, but still don't understand what players would like. I think the (financial) success of games like Ghost Recon Wildlands and Modern Warfare 2019, and their success in monetizing interesting and relatively realistic cosmetics (in comparison to Rainbow 6 Siege or PUBG), should be a lesson to NWI that their is a market for this. They clearly put a lot of effort into the customization available in the base game, but it's a shame and a big loss both to them and the player base that the dlc cosmetics don't match up to the defaults.

I know we had the community poll for new DLC additions but again comparing the concepts that NWI selected and some of those that were posted here and weren't selected (thinking of the one that would have converted the AK74 to an AK74M) is very disappointing.

My suggestions is that NWI look at the customization in Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game had a huge amount of in depth customization options, while still remaining unique and true to the aesthetic of the game. Also, there is a huge amount of source material on the internet. I'm sure lots of people here have seen pictures of the 'paki tape' many afghan fighters addorn their Rifles with. Maintaing a cohesive aesthetic doesn't mean every weapon needs to be a repetetive spray painted tan, but it does take some research and creativity.

Edit: for the vast majority of people who probably don't know much of MoH:W beyond that it was a commercial flop, here's a convenient link to the wiki that shows some of the weapon customization options,:

https://medalofhonor.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Medal_of_Honor:_Warfighter_Weapons