User blog comment:SaddexProductions/Which Skyrim DLC is the best?/@comment-5046408-20130402030708

In my opinion, each of the DLCs are good for their own reasons, so I find myself liking all three in equilibrium (with DG and DB just a little bit higher, solely due to more content).

On one hand, you got Dawnguard, which adds two whole new factions and an associated questline. With the Volkihars, Vampires become somewhat-overpowered; they're not outright attacked on sight at blood-starvation, they can transform to and from at will into basically a magical flying werewolf, and you get a bow that can cause an instantaneous solar eclipse just by shooting an arrow into the sun (granted, most days it's kinda hard to FIND the sun...but still). Then with the Dawnguard, you have crossbows (which, by the way, quickly became my favorite weapon and renewed my enjoyment of Skyrim in general, revamping gameplay for me), you hunt Vampires and collect some rather unique weapons (a hammer that places magical runes...what next? A shout that causes demigods to let you ride on their backs? Oh wait...I'll get to that later), and, of course, you get armored trolls and Siberian husky dogs.

On the other hand, you got Dragonborn. For Morrowind/Bloodmoon veterans, it holds even more sentimental value. For the rest of us? It holds an entire large island filled with goodies hiding in those caves and many hours worth of quests. The main quest is pretty good up to the final quest...when you *SPOILERSish*finally get to kill the guy who potentially stole many Dragon Souls from dragons you potentially worked your tail off to kill, and ironically THAT kill is stolen by some stuck-up daedric bookworm*END OF SOMEWHAT-SPOILERS*. While the main quest is more linear than Dawnguard's, with the DLC focusing on an entirely separate island they have much more room for sidequests and optional areas. Believe it or not, there's more content to Dragonborn than just a somewhat-illogical shout that causes the basically demigod dragons to bow before your mortal might and let you ride on their backs as they fly in circular paths. My personal favorite discovery is when I entered this seemingly-random cave searching for Black Books, only to discover that the dungeon contained a rather unique perk: a crafting station that enables you to mass-produce what I call (quite literally) an entire weapon class of throwable "spider grenades". I'll let you look it up on the wiki if you want, so as to not COMPLETELY spoil it =P

Then somewhere in the middle you have Hearthfire, which enables you to build mansions in one of three holds who did not have homes of their own, as well as adopt children. Personally, I see this DLC favoring more towards people who put more focus on the "RP" in "RPG" than the "G", as most of the details as to what you do in the DLC are heavily implied, and you have to fill in a lot of gaps yourself with your own personal actions or else it feels "empty" or "hollow".

And that's my short take.