Played it brand new and just love it.

User Rating: 9.5 | Gears of War X360
The gameplay rules, the cover system is pretty much vital to the game so if you're a run and gunner you'll die a few times. The guns are well balanced and have great usability and as soon as you pick it up you feel pretty fluent straight away, the crosshairs are very indicative of how the gun will work so it's easy to get into.
As it uses Unreal engine the gameplay can seem very bulky and heavy but it isn't really, most other games are just arcadey in their controls.
The multiplayer was fun as hell and i spent days playing it although i wasn't very good it was still very fun and fairly well balanced, the cover system is a bit awkward and sometimes led to some "No mans land" where people would dare not go as there always someone camping which detracted from the atmosphere but you only had to find another way around and kill the noob.
The singleplayer is nothing new, a big bad guy and an over dramatic charade to kill him(A standard for any shooter these days). The best thing about the game is that it mixes old with new, guns and scripted gameplay with a good melee system and a new cover system, not innovative but surely works well, and has set the standard for all cover systems implemented in a game.