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However, publishers already know that people are willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for cheap trinkets.  And I believe value is something only the individual purchaser can determine, unless folks really think a "Collector's" edition is going to be worth money down the line for resale. 

I preordered the new Alice game mainly because it came with the original.  Then again, I did so at Toys R Us for $45 and I used a $20 credit from some promotion that I had to get rid of...so I'm pretty bad at giving publishers extra money (unless the new game turns out to be horrible). 

But really, if folks aren't wasting their money on things I like, I imagine they'll find some other hole in which to sink it. "

RPG play sessions, however, aren't really meant to be "snack sized," and I totally agree with Ben here.  If I, as a person with plenty of other ways to spend my time, devote that much energy to a game, it should have a proportionate payoff.  And, ideally, that payoff shouldn't be doled out in a high-budget ending cinematic, but piece by piece as you progress through the story.

Think of how much had happened after 35 hours in previous Final Fantasy games.  They're known for having multiple plot twists.  The best of them introduce new playable characters as you go along. 

I have a feeling that, instead of devoting their efforts to the game's characters, setting, and ambiance, the developers fell in love with their own play mechanics.  In place of meaningfully advancing the plot, this game introduces new rules.  "Oh, now I can change characters?  Why, thanks.  That's so much fun."

The primary sin here is that, if the battle system was perfect, if there was a huge variety of enemies, if the game didn't forget your Paradigm arrangements every time you altered your party, if you could control the other characters in your party, or if the ally AI wasn't so inconsistent (What's that, Hope?  You decided to heal Vanille, who had 85% of her HP left, instead of Lightning, who has 10%, and if SHE dies, it's fucking game over?  THANKS!), then this would be fine.  However the game is not perfect, and I'm not playing it because of my love for the technical framework within which the "fun" must be found.

I am going to try and finish FFXIII, but I'm doing it in spite of these flaws.  I DO want  to see what happens, after all.  I just might have to go and re-play FFVI to wash the taste out of my mouth, afterwards."

For me, it's a matter of value - and it's hard to see the value of something that you don't technically own.  Something that doesn't physically exist.  I keep all the games that I buy.  Though the probability that I'll go back through Ghen War (no offense Ghen War) on the Saturn is low, at any point, I can go back and play the game.  

With DLC, it's only playable insofar as the DRM allows.  Some requires network authentication to work.  Others are tied to a single console.  I love the 360, but I've had 4 replaced under warranty before caving and getting an Elite, and I don't really trust the license transfer process.  There's a good chance that one day, through no fault of my own, any DLC I've purchased will just go away.

Each time I had to get a new 360, my old Xbox DLC was corrupted (by old, I mean from the original xbox - maps from Brute Force and Crimson Skies, for example).  The next time that happens, there will be no "download again" option - it's no longer out there in the cloud.

I don't feel too bad because I didn't pay for any Original Xbox content (aside from some DDR tracks - it was a moment of weakness!), but I do have missions from both Mass Effects, content for both Left 4 Dead games, Rock Band tracks, Halo 3 maps (with no physical map pack disc to back them up) and it's not unreasonable to believe that one day (let's say within 8 years - longer than it took to kill the content from the Original Xbox) all of that will be gone. 

Sure, I'll have moved on to whatever the next new thing is, but I still can't get over the mental cost of paying for something I don't have full ownership of.  It'd be one thing if all DLC was just made available for free after a certain time, or if next gen games included full versions of older games with all the extra content (thanks for that, Panzer Dragoon Orta, even if it was the PC version of PD) but there's very little financial incentive to do that, and gamers have proven that enough are willing to pay to not worry about inspiring the loyalty of the rest of us.

So, to actually answer the question, I can't justify paying much for DLC at all.  It'd be as bad (for me) as paying for a demo, or paying to rent a game I'm definitely going to buy.  I purchase too many games (literally hundreds a year) to be able to justify the additional incremental cost.  I'm not the type to get a single game and play it for months on end - I go from one to the next fairly quickly, aside from the occasional social game like L4D or Modern Warfare.

If DLC had minimal cost (say, $.01 for each song in Rock Band, $1 for a map pack), I'd buy anything.  As it stands, I only buy a few pieces of content each year (I'm not getting the MW2 map pack - I'd consider it for $2) and even then anything I do buy is only after a double discount.  I don't see that changing any time soon - I have full, real games I can buy (and fully own) and play, instead."