The expansion adds nice moves and QoL changes for weapons to use against new monsters and variants of old ones. The new area is beautiful and hides some nice secrets.

Wouldn't have been able to sink 550 hours (and growing) into just the base game. Even if some of the mechanics like Clutch Claw are not implemented in the best possible way, I would still recommend the expansion to anyone that enjoyed the base game and is ready to slap some more monsters.