Beautiful but shallow. Not a bad game but certainly an overrated one.
User Rating: 7.4 | Gears of War X360
Clearly in the presentation department Gears is incredible. No game has ever looked as good and few have sounded this great. The story seems deeper than it is as you mostly focus on the combat and your unit rather than the broad scope of things going on in the world around you. I feel the game would have been better served exploring the plot more but perhaps that awaits sequels. The gameplay is interesting. The cover system works well and is intuitive though it would have been nice to have the option to hurdle obstacles easier. However the combat itself is hot-or-miss. The weapons you use are uninspired (save for the chainsaw attachment) and you never really have a feel for what youre shooting at due to there being little indication of how effective youre being at killing whatever youre trying to kill. Aiming is a bit off and the enemies (while making effective use of cover) don't have all that great AI. They work well defending themselves but don't really coordinate well as a team. And the same can be said for your squadmates although they are even less good at defending themselves.
Levels are beautiful and more often than not well designed but theyre also a bit too cramped for my liking. The game is also really short and can be beaten in under 10 hours by the average player. Multiplayer is also kind of a letdown as the matches generally involve two teams blindly charging each other and it comes down to luck more often than skill. Theyre also short and you get too much wait time as compared to play time.
