what are your thoughts on the first Gears...

I thought it was decent in singleplayer and fairly good in co-op (on the 360), but pretty awful in multiplayer.

It seemed more than anything like a tech demo to showcase the Unreal 3 Engine.

I loved GeoW. I played it on my 360 a ton, good SP campaign, and fun online, though it was flawed. Im really looking forward to GeoW2.

I liked it. I even enjoyed it since I didn't run into any bugs that couldn't be remedied by a reload of a previous save game.

I do have a few complaints but it never really ruined my whole experience with it. I recently upgraded my aging video card and played it again and the the graphics still amaze me. I hope GeOW 2 brings something new to the table as opposed to being quite similar to the first one.

Well, at the time I played it, Gears was insanely fun. But I was drunk, and playing it Coop, and we beat it in a night and a morning.

Now that I have played it a few times sober, and taking my time, I can tell you its overrated. The only reason it got such rave reviews is because the 360 did not have a lot of good shooters at the time.

Here are some problems I have with it (from a PC gaming standpoint):

1. It is short. Sorry, but 50 bucks (60 for console) is a lot of money for a six-hour game. Yes, we have all heard of quality over quantity but there is a limit, ok?

2. Terrible multiplayer. With games like Counterstrike and Battlefield, you gotta offer more than what Gears offers.

3. Visually shallow. The NPCs look great, and Mass Effect (same engine) reinforces that, but everything else is just so bland. When you actually look at the environments, theyre muddled and not that great.

4. Replayability. Simply put, there is just no reason to go back and play the game over. You get ambushed by one hole with Locusts swarming out, you pretty much experienced all the exciting parts of the game.

5. Cheesy. Thats right, cheesy. I am not one to usually complain about stories in a shooter, but Gears had a terrible story. The fact that the backstory tried to tie into the modern gas political economy only made it worse. And the voiceacting was downright aweful.

6. Gimmicky. Why do we need a button for cover? Ive been taking cover for years in my video games. All Epic did was make it look sexy. And what is with the whole "choose your path" moments? Seemed like a vain attempt at mimicking nonlinearity.

Is Gears a bad game? Hell no, I even think it qualifies as a good game. But it is far from the best third-person shooter out there. Everyone acts like Gears reinvented the genre, but in my opinion all they did was make it look really really fancy.

In short, Gears made no improvements to gameplay.

It was great. It feels like a horizontal platformer - you run from block to block, instead of jumping from block to block:P

I didn't feel it was repetitive, because the "arenas" and the scripted encounters were varied.

I thought the game was awesome(I still play it to this day).Vilot_Hero

Same. I already pre-ordered the LE + life-size lancer on Amazon. I cant wait.

I enjoyed it. Granted I didn't run into any of the problems widely reported by other players. But the "duck and cover" game mechanics left the game a little stale and repetitive to me.Johnny_Rock

yeah, i haven't encountered any bugs on the pc version (save for one - the end boss sometimes gets stuck when climbing atop a crate).

It's incredibly constricting. Every firefight plays out in the exact same way because I don't have any alternatives. I'm forced to take cover behind this wall, with my only option to advance to the wall ahead of me, retreat to the wall behind me or shoot at my enemy. I didn't really feel like I was in control, and for most of what I played, I felt like it may as well have been an on-the-rails lightgun shooter with a foot pedal to drop into cover.

There's also the ridiculous save system. It uses a checkpoint save system, but it also autosaves. I can't save the game myself. If I want to go back and replay a bit, I have to restart from the beginning.

The entire game feels like an archetypal console game. No freedom, no choice, overly repetitive, constricting. Compared with even a generic FPS like Quake 4 on the PC, Gears felt like a joke.

I played it on the 360 and absolutely loved it. Fantastic game!

One thing...I don't care if someone thinks the game sucks or whatever...not even going to debate that...but one thing is for sure the production values were anything but half arse. The game had extremely high production values and it was obvious the developers took great care in making the game.

Also, I didn't find the game was as restrictive as some others have said...sure it's linear but in my opinion really no more linear then half life 2. I think half life 2 is a better game though.

My thoughts? Well let me explain how I felt... The game garnered a ton of praise from the 360 community so I decided to give it a go.

So here are my major griefs:

Graphics: Grey scale is not a form of realism. Just because it's a dystopian future, doesn't mean that it has to torture the eyes every couple of seconds. If you enjoy the mess of gray and brown, you should go blind as you will be doing your eyes a favour.

Gameplay: Shoot things, run, shoot some more, run, die, shoot, run, etc. Yes I know most games have repetition but it was just overdone here. Add in the fact that the AI never seemed to be much more then puppets on strings as they always seemed to do the same thing everytime. Die before? Load the same level and wallah, the enemies are doing the same tactics as before.

Sound: Aren't kicka** guns suppose to sound cool? I mean it sounded fake as anything and didn't have any umph to me. Now this is more personal taste but it is a major aspect of immersion for me.

Story: Now I can forgive the above by the game giving me an enticing story with characters you actually care for.....Please tell me who the heck actually liked Marcus Fenix? And please tell me that there is more story to this game then I saw as all I saw was a generic Sci-fi story of Aliens invade, humans are losing the war, a small platoon has to deploy a weapon to save mankind... I love Sci-fi but that is just a bit much from the cookie cutter.

Multiplayer: A tacked on option that has as much appeal as a Battlefield Earth did on opening weekend. It's there but you don't want to touch it.

In the end, it's another game on my shelf that is collecting dust. It was lucky enough not to completely annoy me to make it to the garbage can. I also have a friend that asks for me to loan it to them or let them play it and I down right refuse. I don't want anyone to suffer as much as I did.

It's incredibly constricting. Every firefight plays out in the exact same way because I don't have any alternatives. I'm forced to take cover behind this wall, with my only option to advance to the wall ahead of me, retreat to the wall behind me or shoot at my enemy. I didn't really feel like I was in control, and for most of what I played, I felt like it may as well have been an on-the-rails lightgun shooter with a foot pedal to drop into cover.

There's also the ridiculous save system. It uses a checkpoint save system, but it also autosaves. I can't save the game myself. If I want to go back and replay a bit, I have to restart from the beginning.

The entire game feels like an archetypal console game. No freedom, no choice, overly repetitive, constricting. Compared with even a generic FPS like Quake 4 on the PC, Gears felt like a joke.

fatshodan

Why so cynical?

I disagree with everything you said. Gears of War has one of the best checkpoints ever. The game is linear and it was meant to be played that way. You cant have every game be open world. Every game has it's critics....