Ok, sorry, I guess I didn't notice. I still toasted everything easily in the game on my first playthrough without needing to optimize. There's so much combat after Tenebrium comes in you still have at least 7 levels to gain so you've easily got enough to pump it to 5 or higher. You get one for free, after all.
There are lots of games with late-game specific skills which you could in theory save up for. You don't need to in DOS and you don't need to cheese the game using Leech or Stealth to get through either.
In that context, and with good in-game narrative to explain and introduce this dark matter, I don't have any problem with the introduction of tenebrium.
I should add I am a player of no great skill so my experience of the combat should be fairly typical.
