I wanted to redeem a $20 gift card given to me by for Christmas*. I wanted to download a $10 expansion pack to Fallout 3. I could find the expansion pack no problem (the advertising dept smartly displayed it first as something I'd be interested in) but I couldn't buy it. On the download screen is a handy payment-looking-thing titled "redeem code" which seems right because the card has a 25 number code on it. But if you enter the code there it tells you to go screw. If you go to "account management" there is a help screen that tells you about redeeming Microsoft Points cards but doesn't tell you how except to go to the "Marketplace" section. If you'd guessed that the something I tried to buy was already in the Marketplace section then enjoy your cookie. Oh, and there's two marketplace interfaces. The first is the one that tries to sell you stuff and the second is harder to get to and administrative. You have to find the second one, navigate the submenus, enter the code, and then go back to the first one to actually spend the money.
Unacceptable stupidity. The above was just a brief description of my pain. Other bugs include the refusal message from the "redeem code" link: it told me "that code is not applicable to this content" which made me doubt the card itself. You see the card's bottom half is a giant advertisement for the game Guitar Hero which I do not have. Would they sell a $20 card that could only be applied to particular $60 game? I had no idea but the message suggested as much.
I did eventually buy the $10 thing I wanted to buy but not without a lot of hassle and frustration.
As for the DLC [DownLoadable Content, basically a small content expansion] itself the interface again sucks. On the launch screen you can either continue your previous game, some other options (load/save/etc), or visit downloads. If you visit downloads there are two options: "back" and "thing you just paid for." If you click the latter it makes a sound and does nothing. To actually play the thing you just downloaded you have to go back and hit continue - but that's not all! continue will take you to the autosave right before the original game ended and then you have to finish the last couple minutes again at which point a message flashes that the new content is loaded. As annoying and non intuitive as that is the game doesn't continue depending on how you finish those last two minutes. If you sacrifice yourself to save the world, it continues; if knowing that you want to play the continuation you just paid for you instead sacrifice a friend to save the world, you are boned and the game just ends. Oh, and to sacrifice yourself you need the 3-digit code to activate the bomb. Since it has been several months since you played the game you have to google to find the 3-digit code. Maybe the game devs don't hate the players but it certainly feels that way.
If Dante were alive today he would reserve an inner circle of hell for shoddy craftsmanship.
* for Christmas we do a "Secret Santa" instead of gifts-all-around. It isn't secret because someone assigns all the gift givers and everyone tells their person what they want. The beauty of the system is that instead of giving and receiving $300 of gifts you give and get just $50 -- which involves less shopping and is generally less silly.