There’s three new Mega Man 9 DLC packs hitting WiiWare today (October 20th, 2008), with XBLA following on October 21st, and PSN releasing October 23rd.  

Today’s menu offerings are: Special Time Attack Stage, Hard Mode, and Expert Mode.  Click here for a gallery of a few choice screens !  

My favorite so far is the all-new Special Stage (not to be confused with Special Sauce ).  It’s great because:

1) It’s pretty hard but beatable by humans.

2) It has really creative uses for all of your different weapns.

3) Do I have to even mention it?  New Boss: Fake Man!   I am a super sucker for bosses of any kind, and Robot Masters maybe most of all. 

As for the other DLC packs, we heard the masses crying out that “Mega Man 9 is great, but frankly it was a little too easy!”  And so we bring you Hard Mode, and the jaw-dropping Expert Mode.

The difficulty on Expert Mode is reported to be “three times” as hard as the default MM9.  I like to imagine some Giant Dial of Evil-ness attached to the MM9 production line, and Inafune-san cranking it alllll the way up for this one, cackling with dark glee. 

If you thought there were a few enemies in unfair places before–woo!–wait until you play these modes.  Rough!  Attention noobs: DO NOT PURCHASE EXPERT!  Or, alternately, buy it for someone you dislike.