Gonna finish up 13 and somehow try to get 13-2 before Lightning Returns comes out.

Very good games. You get a fan bonus for having XIII save data on your console.

Has anybody tried the DLC boss fights for XIII-2 yet? Im thinking of trying them out.

I looked in the marketplace on Xbox and the only Boss fights I'd want are Lightening & Boss or whatever his name was.

I have 3 of the DLC boss fights and 2 of the DLC episodes.
The Lightning episode is worth it. Sazh's is sorta iffy to me.
Do not however buy the boss fights until you are prepared enough for it you might wanna beat the game first.
I have Gilgamesh,Snow/Vladorf,and Jilh Nabaat.
Nabaat is the easiest one as Gilgamesh and Snow's are pretty damn hard.
But they are all fun and give you amazing monsters.

Oh ive already beaten the game and maxed out Serah and Noel. Ive actually played the Snow battle (at a friend's house), and while i didnt beat it, i lasted a good long time, cuz i found out that you have to employ sentinels to get him to keep switching targets.

One monster is required to be half decent at these fights.
Chichu.
I have a maxed out commando lightning and she is nowhere near as effective as a Chichu. But due to me not knowing how the infusion system worked (I thought if you infused a monster with a higher attack stat the monsters attack goes up Whoops) I got rid of Chichu. Turns out I just needed the atk +30%. I also didnt know Don Tonberry gave the Atk +50% now I can't really defeat Gilgamesh unless I beat a lv 80 Vladorf.

When i was doing the Snow fights, my friend had it set up so that Lightning was the attacking monster, and Sazh as the Synergist. I believe he had two Lightnings or something, it was a while ago so i dont remember that clearly.

You can get by using (C) Lightning vs Snow but when fighting Gilgamesh use the Chichu since Lighting uses ruin and armor breaker is essential to deal 100k damage.

Quick questions

I am on the overworld of XIII right now (that's where I decided to stop playing) and why does everything rape my face? Do I have to avoid all the monsters and just carry on with story missions?

At that point in the game you HAVE to pick and choose your battles. Like some of the smaller creatures like the basic wolves should be fine to fight, but if you try your hand against a Behemoth or an Adamantoise then your signing a death warrant. Not only that but the very next place after the Steppes features a miniboss with infinitely respawning allies (unless you know when to stop attacking them) so pretty much the best thing you can do is try and get to a side area called the Yaschas Massif, which should have enemies around your power level.

you go back there during the game and train on higher level monsters and do harder missions

If you JUST got to the Steppe, then i'd suggest fighting the flans, they are some of the weakest enemies there, and provide decent CP (for that point in the game) also they are pretty easy to kill. The wolves might be too powerful if you just got there. Get a little stronger, and you can probably fight the goblins near the center of the map as well (they like to gang up on a single character so be prepared for that)

Oh cool, I just got to that part yesterday.

also you should probably have all the crystarium stuff available up to that point bought before you fight bartandelus the pope dude