One of the best games on the x360 + all released DLC + a low price = one amazing deal!
This game, imo, is one of the best games/deals released and deserves more credit than it is given credit for. This game literally has almost anything you could ever want, even if you dont have Live. It has:
An amazing Single Player
Co-op
Horde (up to 5 players)
Multiplayer (although still slightly laggy)
Bots for Multiplayer, for those of you w/o Live or who want consistent non-laggy matches
And all game add-on DLC ever released for the game.
All that for 40$.
Now to go through each category:
Single Player:
Amazing, to put it short. This is by far the most fun and intense SP experience ive had and its my favorite SP game. The game basically plays out as a movie, where you play as the main character (Marcus Fenix). I may be a bit biased here because i love super scripted, movie-like SP games. This game and CoD4 are both good examples (CoD4 played out as a movie too in a way). Regardless this game is filled to the brim with action. It honestly is a movie experience. The games cutscenes are brilliant (my favorite being Prescotts speech, which you can see here but beware of spoilers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ialrYDx2qlw , the music is amazing (scored by Steve Jablonsky, a legend right up there with Hanz Zimmer. You can hear one of Steves awesome songs in the above link of the speech), and the graphics are top notch. Just to add to the movie-experience, you can completely get rid of the HUD and have it only enable when you're in a fight. To do this turn on 'Fading HUD', turn off 'Tooltip Icons' (this can make the game slightly harder to play though), and turn off 'Subtitles'. The story itself is actually pretty deep and good, but would make much more sense if you play Gears 1 first. To learn more about the story i would suggest visiting http://gearsofwar.wikia.com/wiki/Gears_of_War_Wiki but again beware of spoilers. The story has an emotional side to it, mostly having to do with Dom in search of his wife Maria. You can see a trailer of the game revealing its more emotional side here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL_ZjJgbDmc
The Single Player is not insanely long, but its not absurdly short either and i guarantee it will take anywhere from 15-25 hours if you play on Insane the first time through depending on how good you are.
Co-op:
Not much to say, but the the co-op works very well. You can play 2-player co-op split-screen, locally, or online with random people. The game does not necessarily revolve around co-op like in the Splinter Cell co-op missions or Left4Dead, but it definitely doesnt feel tacked on. You will both need to work together and use teamwork to get past certain sections, especially on Insane.
Horde:
Up to 5 people can play together to defeat increasingly harder waves against enemies. At least thats how it is advertised, but its not entirely true. The waves do not get increasingly more difficult, they repeat after wave 10, the enemies just get stronger, more accurate, ect.. So for example, wave 29 is more difficult than wave 41, because wave 41 is essentially wave 1 (just stronger enemies, but theres so much less enemies than on wave 29 that its still easier). Other than that, Horde is extremely fun and very addictive. You and your team will need to work together to get to wave 50. Horde also influenced many other games to have similar ideas (WaW's Nazi Zombies, L4D's survivor mode, H3 ODST's firefight, ect). I may actually be wrong on that but to my knowledge Horde was the first of its kind (at least the first successful one that i know of).
Multiplayer:
This is where most of the games faults are, and where most negative player reviews revolve around, but i dont think its fair to mark this game down so much for having a laggy MP. First of all, the game has been patched numerous times and the lag is not nearly as bad now as at release (i didnt have the game at release but other people said its more bearable now). Second, if you dont want lag you can always play Bot matches, which are fun (at least to me). One more negative is that there is no way to leave a MP match once its started besides exiting to the dashboard (this is to prevent 'quiters') but sometimes people leave anyways. The good news is that if someone does leave, they are replaced by a Bot to prevent un-even teams. Bottom line: If you want to buy this game solely for MP, rent it first or just play with Bots, unless you dont mind lag and host advantage. If you do not want lag play bot matches, which leads me to:
Bots:
This feature is for if you dont have xbox live or if you dont like laggy games, play with Bots. Sure, their not human and they arent perfect. Sometimes theyll be retarded and stay in cover while you stand two feet next to them with a shotty, other times theyll headshot across the map while strafing with a sniper rifle. However, with their faults they are still fun to play with and my preferred method of MP (especially since you can choose the map/gametype and team you play on, as well as being able to quit to the menu at any time).
DLC:
The GOTY edition includes all game add-on DLC's ever released for Gears 2. It gives you a card to download the All Fronts collection from the marketplace, so it should be noted that the DLC must actually be downloaded and is not included on the disk, meaning it will take up precious harddrive space (if you have a 20gb HD like me, if you have 120 it wont really matter). Anyways, the All Fronts DLC includes all 4 map packs (snowblind, flashback, dark corners, and combustible) as well as the deleted "Road to Ruin" SP chapter which provides you with a deleted scene that allows to play stealthy if you'd like. This brings the final game's map count to a whopping 29 maps for all your Horde/Bot/MP match needs. As for the SP content, the deleted chapter is pretty short. It has two different options: Guns Blazing or Use Stealth. The Guns Blazing option will take much longer (it actually took me close to 2 hours since i played alone on Insane and it was pretty hard), and the Stealth section feels pretty tacked on, but you have to remember its a "deleted" scene, meaning it was deleted for a reason. Regardless, the deleted scene is fun and can be played co-op if a friend has the content also. One more thing, it should be noted that the game comes with a card to download the Flashback Map Pack, as well as the All Fronts DLC (which includes the Flashback Map Pack) so you essentially have two Flashbacks. You can sell one on Ebay and even reimburse yourself some money i bet.
All that for 40$:
YEP! Thats right! You get all this for only 40$ (it was actually 37$ for me since i got it off Amazon and it came with free 2 day shipping since i have Amazon Prime). That sure is a great deal so id recommend picking it up if you havent already.
Conclusion:
This game is a blast to play, and includes a lot of content to keep even players without Live busy for a lifetime (literally, since youll always have Bot matches to play so the "community" will technically never die).
My recommendation:
Must buy. One of the few great x360 exclusive, a great game all around. One of the most action packed SP experiences, backed up by an addicting Horde mode and Mp/lag free bot matches.
Final Score:
10/10