It is the same thing just that it was released way later... And adding an already existing character with all of his moveset in the game they could have included him as well from the very start...
But I haven't cared for it as I do not care for it if Bloody Palace is a FREE DLC or on the disc for free...
It REALLY isn't, and I'm not saying this to make DmC look bad, it's free, so I don't care if it's DLC or not, I'd buy if it was paid DLC as well, even though I really shouldn't.
DMC 3 SE is essentialy a greatest hits rerelease that MANY games get when they sell enough, the difference is that no one else adds content, maybe some fixing (since there weren't online patches at the time), but that much content essentially for free (there was no black label DMC 3 SE, it was just more content for the Greatest Hits version) is a pretty big deal. We have a Bloody Palace folder in the demo, meaning they've been planning that for a long time, and for whatever reason it'll come later as DLC instead of being in the game. Same with Vergil's Downfall, it has been planned for a long time prerelease, and we already have gameplay footage of it, so even though it'll still be a while before it comes out, it's still content being developed before the game came out to be sold as a separate thing.
I'm not even blaming Ninja Theory for this, but Capcom's new business practices in this generation. Had DMC4 came a little bit later you can be sure as hell they'd charge for Bloody Palace. DmC escaped the paid DLC because it's coming out after the SF X Tekken fiasco, just like RE6 had a lot of post release free content (that also had folders and files referencing them on disk, so basically they took some content off to give it later to the fans and look good)
It would be the same if we never got Vergil's Downfall or Bloody Palace, and then when the Greatest Hits version was about to hit they decided to make this content for this version. The way it is, it's more like Resident Evil 5, we'll probably get a DmC Gold Edition down the road (it'll probably be called Special Edition).
Again, not hating on DmC, I love that it's free and I can't wait to play it, but people need to stop saying it's the same as DMC3, because it really isn't.