Reviews

I give it a resounding meh so far. The campaign is SHORT, Finished it with all declassifieds and 40 of the cog tags on hardcore in just under 6 hours. It was fun to play through.

I don't know if I like the multiplayer just yet. I don't like this phrase, but it feels CoD-ified. The maps are HUGE for Gears maps. Sandbar in Gears 3 was too big, all of these are larger than that one. You die SO fast. There's none of the intensity of the previous Gears games. That 1v1, wallbouncing gnasher battle fun is gone. Now you just run around for 15-20 seconds before even seeing anyone and get blasted from behind by a sawed off. Blindfiring with the retro is also now a valid strategy. It's very easy to just run around in circles and hold the trigger down.

I need more time with it. I'm not saying it's not fun, you get to run around and make people explode with shotguns, but it's not Gears.

So after playing for a few more hours, I've figured out part of what's bothering me. Aside from Overrun, the need for teamwork is just about gone. People die practically instantly so there's no need to spot or team shoot, and you can't go down so there's no need to stick near a teammate to revive or get revived. There's no set team spawns so you wind up popping in all over the map. Rather than following your team to get boomshot and hold down an area, people just run around and do whatever. I think part of it is because instead of having a finite pool of lives, it's just the first team to 50 kills. Someone with a boomshot killing 2 of your guys and making the score 9-7 felt like a big thing. Now when the guy with the boomshot gets a triple, who gives a shit? Power weapons don't feel like power weapons anymore.

Also, your modded controller will work with the pistol.

looks like gears of war but this aint gears they took everything out of the gampllay that set it appart from all the other games. im tired of games dumbing down to be somthing its not. i dont think they ruined the game but i already miss the older versions and what they brought to the table.

I need to play it more to form a better opinion of it.  I thought what I played was fun, but we only played private mathces.  Tomorrow, I plan on attacking matchmaking.  FFA is fun, but I have always preferred team modes. Many of the changes that Epic has made don't bother me.  Some I like, some I don't.  Not executing people is strange, but now there is no bickering over kill stealing.  Over all, I like the game so far.  The legitimate down side is going to be the lack of maps.  We will see how much that affects the game down the home stretch.

Not happy with it. It feels like more of an expansion pack than a full retail game. Half the game types, less than half the maps, half of a campaign.

Diet Gears of War Lite *Now with 50% more microtransactions, less real content!

Also not a fan of the gameplay changes either. No DBNO, no grenade tagging, TacCOM being on the damn D-pad (making it useless essentially. I used it a lot in Gears 2 & 3). No Locust in MP except for Over Run mode. Lame. No Horde? More lame.

I hope more time with it changes my view. But I doubt it. And that season pass is a joke really.

I'd like some actual content. Not empty game calories.

I will be honest with everyone.  I was ready to put this game on the shelf after the first night of playing it.  Everything is entirely different than Gears 3 (movement seemed slower, only 1 weapon to start, can't plant nades, getting stuck with nades that are thrown at me, etc.,etc.....)  But then something magical happened last night that made me think this game could be my go to for some time to come....

Once I stopped trying to compare it to Gears 3 and just looked at it as a stand alone game (which I need to learn how to play) the game became fun again... It reminded me of the first time I played Halo 2 (very, very frustrating but also exciting at the same time)  You have to want to get better at the game in order for it to be fun.  Myself and 2 to 3 other guys played Domination for 3 to 4 hours and won almost every game we played and had a blast learning the game together and figuring out which tactics work and which don't.  Other than a few WTF moments I didn't hear anyone complaining about connection or host or any of the normal bullshit that normally goes along with Gears.  All we were talking about was how to win the game and what we were going to do as a team..

I agree with Silent that it should have come out with more than 4 maps.  The maps that they have are pretty damn good.  You can tell they put some time into the design and trying to balance out the power weapons.  I love the new elevations of the maps and the fact that you can now jump over barriers from like 3 stories up... I think this is awesome!!!!!  At first I hated that everyone had nades to start with but after playing the game for awhile I understand why they made this decision..

They only real bitch I have about the game so far is the COG vs COG in multiplayer takes a little getting used to compared to LOCUST vs COG.  Once you get used to the Blue vs Red it gets a little easier but man when someone is running at you full speed it sometimes take a little to figure out if they are on your team or not....

Once they start adding new maps and they get execution in April I believe that this will be a very solid game moving forward.

The footstep sounds are a bit of a problem. With all the elevations it's hard to tell if someone is above or below you.

I do love Overrun though. It's the only even slightly competitive mode and actually requires teamwork and communication. Of course because those are dirty words. Everyone wants to be the mauler, nobody will be the kantus then they'll cry and quit when their mauler dies.

Taco,have you tried domination yet.. I've read all you post and actually agree with most of what you have said.  The only multiplayer I'm really enjoying is domination.  Tdm is basically free for all but you have teammates.... Domination takes teamwork and communication.  I also like it because it forces teams to be agressive and try to get the hills.