Actually the Gamespy account is also used for certain very basic things, single player progress being one of them.
No internet access? You have to start over again.
Gamespy server down? Tough luck, see above.
Never
ever should the offline experience be completely tied to the availability of some server on the internet. I see a point in one-time registration of the game, but make it mandatory even for stuff as simple as remembering screen brightness settings?
Ya, totally.
You just can't paper over the cracks with what Gamespy did to the release of this game and trying to justify it's inclusion into the game is just plain crazy - so 1) that would be the first thing to go imo.
2) And as alreay mentioned, get rid of the Gears connection and suit up the characters in stuff they could actually move around in, let's humanize the game again and shoot at flesh and bone instead of someone with a dustbin wrapped around them.
3) Levels - lots of them but you know, make them look different from one another and have some interesting themes, let the level designers decide what themes to use instead of some guy who thinks wrapping octopus tentacles around everything is somehow cool - also,the futuristic stuff is getting on my tits tbh. More Deathmatch and CTF - I still play Curse and Turbine for UT and they play infinately better than anything on UT3 - that's just taking the piss.
4) Someone turn the lights on? - Seriously, the levels need brightening up a bit, dark and gloomy maybe trendy and cool but Mirrors Edge was like a shot in the arm as far as lighting levels is concerned. - Epic pay attention to what's going on around you - no harm being influenced by your peers.
5) De-grunjification - Some of the textures need cleaning up - grunge looks nice if used sparingly on brighter surfaces but everything caked in crap is OTT imo.
6) New texture sets - expansion definately needs an overhaul of textures, a brand new set for each level, maybe utilise a few from UT3 but not many - a simple texture set change would transform the game.
6) Music - how about something decent? Maybe give a choice of genres instead of this rock/grunge stuff - so 4 years ago - again Mirrors Edge had some beautiful ambient techno type music - very refreshing.
Just a quick bunch of stuff off the top of my head.
Lruce