Overall, I much prefer the scope and scale of Expansions like SotE for RPGs, they last long enough to tell a proper story and actually expand upon the base game in a meaningful and lasting way. Think Far Harbor vs Automatron if you've played Fallout 4.

I was going to write something similiar to this. Shadow of the Erdtree actually feels like something you can sink your teeth into, whereas Ringed City can easily be beaten within two evenings. Just like two extra areas to add to the rest of the game, whereas SotE could easily be its own game. It kind of has to be, since it is in its exploration that Elden Ring really shines and that just wouldn't work if you didn't have the physical space of the gameworld to actually get lost in. The DLC definitely has its problems, like I can definitely see people dislike the bosses, the scadutree blessings and I'm personally just not a big fan of how it interacts/doesn't interact with the main game, but besides that it's basically a better, more compact version of the main game. It somehow managed to surprise me just as much as the maingame with just how much better and more surprising it ended up being than I would have expected, cannot wait for whatever they make next.