Microsoft has just released the first piece of downloadable content for Halo Wars, the last game developed by Ensemble Studios. It's called the Strategic Options pack and adds three entirely new game modes to the real time strategy title. It costs 800 Microsoft Points, or 10 dollars if you are interested in real world money, and you can get it now through Xbox Live.

The three new modes for Halo Wars are Keepaway, Tug of War, and Reinforcement. Each of them shakes up the rules of the game in order to provide a different experience in skirmish or multiplayer. It's not a lot for the price that Microsoft is asking but if you like the real time strategy version of Halo, then you might be interested in checking out Strategic Options.

Of course, the release came with a handful of controversy, as gamers quickly began to complain about the fact that the DLC was only 2 MB big, which led some to believe that all the content offered by Microsoft was already on the game disk and the company only unlocked it for play.

Still, Dave Pottinger, who is the lead designer behind Halo Wars, popped up in the forums and said that the accusation made by gamers was not true. He stated that “None of the DLC was on the disc when it shipped. The game modes are a small download because they are rules. There is some new content, but it’s obviously a different type of content compared to a map. Also, the recent patch added a bunch of miss support/engine groundwork for both DLCs.”

Microsoft is saying that it is interested in offering more content for Halo Wars, which was surprisingly successful for a RTS only released on the Xbox 360. But the company needs to understand that offering just rules for the price of 10 dollars is not the way to go. What players want is new content.