Gears of War...best Xbox game ever?

Is Gears of War the best game ever? Well, it made it's case when it kicked Halo2 off the top of the Xbox Live most played list, and helped ramp up 360 sales. I go back and play some older games (like Halo2, G.R.A.W., COD2, Quake4), and, as CliffyB was hoping for, I miss the duck and cover!! And the chainsaw rocks...is there a better weapon on gaming?? I don't think so. (The BFG-9000 from the Doom series, especially, Doom3, makes a strong showing, though.) Everyone complains about the single-player campaign being so short, but if Gears becomes a trilogy, hopefully the campaigns will be a little longer.

However, here's my fear...the subsequent Gears releases as well as other games may REQUIRE the HD-DVD player. Though they say that the HD-DVD player cannot play any of the games, it seems to me that the Gears campaign was so short because of the intensive graphics and animations. I think they just simply ran out of space on the standard DVD-ROM disk (though I haven't heard anyone confirm this), so they had to make everything fit. With the HD graphics only destined to get better, I would have to imagine that space on DVD's will become a growing issue. Thus, if the Gears campaign is going to be longer, it may be that HD-DVD will be the next wave in the HD gaming market...

If you think that Gears is the best game you've ever played...drop me a comment!