I don't know, I liked a lot of the later levels. Duke Burger is one of my favorite levels, the driving sections were fun when you're running over things, and even though Hoover Dam didn't have the visual fun that the earlier levels did, the most powerful weapons are more common here, so gameplay fun is higher. The boss fights were challenging, but very fun.
Also, I didn't think the Hive was all that bad. It's one big Aliens reference, after all. It's supposed to be kind of nasty. Plus, I don't think the game killed off the twins in an extremely mean-spirited way, considering Duke angrily swears revenge for them after they die. I interpreted his line before as an instance of Black Comedy to calm down a tense situation, evidenced by the fact that the twins also joke with him. He thought he could rescue them, so being an ass to a friend after a tense situation is a natural reaction. Their deaths came as a surprise to Duke.
I will admit that the earlier sections of the game were superior to the latter parts, but I thought the whole game was very fun, nonetheless. Much better than many of the modern shooters out today.
Also, The Doctor Who Cloned Me is an absolute blast. I loved every minute of it, and it actually helps add to the main campaign because the levels in the DLC were the original last levels of the main campaign before being cut, giving a more complete narrative to the story as a whole. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
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Starts out strong, but...
I freaking loved the first few hours of this game. The humor was amazingly funny (in a juvenile way, I'll admit), the gameplay was a breath of fresh air after the endless "realistic" shooters on the market, the NP Cs practically worshiping the ground you walked on was nice, and all in all it seemed like the wait had been well worth it, even if it wasn't the most innovative game on the market.
Then I got to the Hive.
Dark, dank, slimy nastiness everywhere, without the early-game humor to leaven it, the two girls Duke had been chasing for the entire game dying in what seemed like an amazingly mean-spirited way, topped off by what I will admit was a fun, challenging boss fight.
The fun, while returning after I got out of the Hive, began steadily draining from there. Moving away from Vegas took most of the enjoyment out of the (not Crysis-caliber, but I can deal with that) visuals, and the Hoover Dam sequence was more of a slog than anything else, capped off with a boss fight that stopped my progress - and interest - dead in its tracks.
Don't let my disillusionment with the late game fool you: I still love the hell out of the early part. If they had kept that tone and pace up through the entire game, I'd have been perfectly satisfied. (Hm, there's an idea for a fanfic...) There were some flashes of fun in the later sections of the game (Duke Nukem's Titty City, the running Hoover Dam Battlelord boss fight, and the battle against the mook that ambushes you while you're shrunk in particular), but they got fewer and farther between the longer the game went.
Overall, the early game is awesome, but just be ready for what you're getting into for the later part.
Addendum: I haven't tried The Doctor Who Cloned Me yet, so I can't comment on that.