@the_kfd_case: You're not wrong, in a sense. But you're also missing the point here. Weaponry may very well be a necessary evil, to ironically combat the violence perpetrated by those same tools of death and destruction, but the comment was in criticism of a new series of articles that seemingly idolize and glorify these things. Ostensibly we all do that when we interact and play pretty much every game that involves violence, so the OC may need to reconcile what brought them here in the first place, but your sentiments on the so called importance of utilizing weapons doesn't make a whole of of sense in this context whatsoever.
I don't think the lack of tobacco is coming from a "save the children" perspective, and so anyone with more than 5 braincells can see that the game isn't taking a moral stance on their content, which means the, "but they're keeping the gratuitous violence in? lelelelel" argument right out the window. This is the man in charge of the dev team having a personal beef with helping to normalize, and by extension, tangentially helping to sell, tobacco products in his games. As long as he calls the shots, and can make his team follow through with them, no more smoking in Gears. It's literally the opposite of censorship, it's in fact a person presenting exactly what they want presented in their game(s).
This set up sounds a little more like a Terrigen Mist/Inhumans back door pilot to me. But, you know...hopefully done a lot better than the recent TV show.
@nick2ooo: Fair enough. I think that's been at the heart of the discussion in the comments. I personally don't see it that way, and I think it may also lead a conversation about what the shonen genre is and traditionally has been, and the way female characters are presented to young boys and men. And THAT is a whole other can of worms.
@nick2ooo: I like Piccolo and Gaara too, but maybe the reviewer thinks otherwise. To be fair Android 18 would be awesome. She always has been. But it think it's still just a roster preference thing, where everyone will have their own opinion and we just have to be cool with it.
@Deadmaninc024: I think you actually could look at it the same way; it really is as simple as the reviewer not liking the roster all that much the way it is right now. So whether it's something like, "more Yu Yu Hakusho should have been there!" vs "where are all of my favourite badass women?" it's not all that different. In a huge cross over fighting game, who's in and who gets snubbed is a big deal, and I think the reviewer is welcome to be disappointed with the final cut.
Chunkman's comments