Look, I'm a die hard Gears of War fan. Rating this game 3 stars is difficult for me because Gears 2 & 3 are probably my favorite two shooters of all time. So here are my reasons for rating the game as such.



Let's get what's right about the game said here. The graphics are on par with other games in the genre and even other games within it's own franchise. The sound is good, the controls are solid, and even the campaign premise has something new that I think adds a fun new twist to the series. You are able to decide whether or not to accept challenges that make playing the campaign significantly more difficult in each section. The pay off is XP and some achievements. Some of the challenges are more difficult than others. Some are time based, ie "Complete this section in under this amount of time." Others are play this section with only one designated weapon, ie only use shotguns. Still others are environment based; extreme fog, extreme wind, slower health regeneration, etc. I believe all of those things are new and fun additions to the franchise, especially when playing co-op. The classic weapons are all there; favorites such as the lancer, mulcher, and sawed off shotgun are all available and there are a few new ones such as the trip wire crossbow.



Now for what's not up to par. The story itself is a little stupid though if that were the only problem I would probably still give this game 5 stars just because it's Gears and you have to suspend disbelief. Marcus Fenix only appears briefly in the game and that is only via audio as your squad can hear that Marcus is in trouble. The biggest flaw I had in the game was with the nuts and bolts so to speak. After playing about 3/5 of the campaign co-op with my brother via Xbox Live, I came back to it a week later and all of my progress in game in terms of XP, leveling, achievements, Cog tags, etc had all been set back to zero while my progression within the story had not. So essentially I started Chapter 4 in story, but my progress towards achievements for everything had to start over. I found this to be incredibly frustrating. My brother did not have to same issues so he was able to unlock all the co-op achievements while I was unable to do so by the time we reached the end. Could it be isolated to a corrupt save file just for me and on my Xbox, sure that's possible, but it's highly unlikely as I've not had that issue for any of the other 150+ games I've played. Very disappointing.