Gears theme, maps now on Live

Ms. Pac-Man may be today's featured Xbox Live Arcade game, but the yellow gaming icon hardly had a monopoly on Xbox Marketplace downloads this morning. The first multiplayer map pack for Gears of War also went live today, as Epic Games previously promised. The map pack features two new player-versus-player maps, Raven Down and Old Bones, and is free to download.

That wasn't all the free Gears of War schwag that appeared on Xbox Live Marketplace this morning. Also available is a free Gears of War dashboard theme, based on the new maps. The theme adds a few blades of Marcus Fenix unloading on Locusts as well as a few screens of the new battlegrounds. DashboardThemes.com has a preview of the theme on its Web site.

For those who want to get an idea of the maps straight from the man who designed them, Epic and Microsoft have also released a video blog from Gears of War lead designer Cliff Bleszinski. In the video, Cliff gives a brief overview of both maps and gives thanks to the game's fans.

For more on Gears of War, which won GameSpot's Game of the Year award for 2006, read our previous coverage.