Back in my day, DLC was part of the game from the start, but unlockable.
I don't think online only game distribution will work too well, especially not here. I read somewhere that only about 50% of consoles were online. In a recent article from Capcom about OkamiHD being DLC only, but the Japanese getting a disc version, they stated that the Japanese weren't so crash hot on downloading games, so yeh.. Make of that what you will.
The day that games are download only is the day I hang up my hat as a gamer.
(Well a modern gamer, I have plenty of old games to play anyway)
Back on topic. DLC in the first day is pretty poor form though, I wonder what the size of the DL is? If its about 100kb, then it's on the disc already. Just as bad as the Street fighter games, who charge for extra colour palettes!
*edit*
Just finished checking the pictures and two of the characters are in the game already. Perceptor and Blast off, so I'd say that it's already on the disc fer sure.