Gears of "What the hell where they thinking?"

User Rating: 3.5 | Gears of War: Judgment X360
Gears of War fans rejoice, because the previous 3 games from Epic studio are still a blast to play, unlike this cynical cash cow that has no place being a full price game.

The campaign is short, disjointed and lacking in flair. The narrative is uninteresting and does little to flesh out the wonderful universe created by the previous games, if you were looking for a background story of Baird and Cole then you're wasting your time. The main quest line is pretty straight forward, we don't get to hear about E-day or much on the previous conflicts of Sera, instead it's go here and shoot this, then flick this switch and shoot that, uninspired to say the least. The new characters are mainstream, tick off the disgruntled Gorasni soldier and Oynx cadet and that's it, little to like about either of them and lacking in character both.

Each mission plays out like a small horde mode or tiny skirmish, there is little scope to each map and little chance to explore, the cogs are ridiculously easy to find, some even have arrows to point out their location! Each so-called story mission play's out in little under five minutes, add 3 mates instead of the retarded AI and you can probably flog a mission in under three minutes. What exactly did they do to the AI? Not only do the enemy soldiers display some peculiar behavior but the disease effects you friendlies as well, they will often stand side by side and do nothing, I have seen them stuck on walls and clip through them. Your allies constantly get into your firing line and push you out of cover, they will hover around you trying to get into "your" corner and won't leave till you relinquish the spot. It's almost like they took the dumbed down AI from Horde mode and put it in the campaign!

Enough about the campaign as it soon leaves a sour taste in your mouth, time for some Horde mode....sorry not here. You can play against the enemy AI in overrun and other modes but Horde is sorely lacking from this title. That's my real problem with this game, it looks good, plays the same as GOW should but it's a watered down product. It's really only an update to multiplayer with some new modes and maps, it was probably marked as DLC until Epic passed the reigns over to "People can fly". The forgettable campaign, missing elements of multiplayer and a few new additions, hardly worthy of a complete new game? Fans will be bitter at the lack of story, multiplayer fans will love it, until they realize it's only a bit sized piece with very few maps and a wealth of premium DLC to pay for.

When boiled down there really isn't much to offer, the new mode Overrun could have been a simple DLC for GOW3 and the fans would have loved it, the new studio should have been given ample time to come up with something (dare I say it?) more epic, give the real fans the story of E-day, the civil war before the emergence of the locust, instead what they got was the left overs from a studio and were told to make a game out of it.

This is not a befitting title to the GOW collection, it would have made superb DLC but as a stand alone game it comes up short. It's a nice looking stew, but when you stir the pot there's little meat left, only bones of a once great franchise. Shame really.....