Just want to give my support as a fellow game dev that making games costs time and money and isn't easy so yeah a DLC sometimes is necessary to cover the costs and no I don't think that's predatory because you can just... not buy it.
The game has a free version and the paid version is cheap as hell, complaining about it is just absurd - people gotta make a living you know? That's how life works for everyone, including game devs