This game does not really warrant a review...
There are some tiny bits and pieces that stick out but overall, it is an amazing experience.
The campaign:
Nothing overtly new and special aside from the fact that it is the final chapter in the SAGA. I'll be honest, so far I am into the third act and it is a blast. There are some flashbacks there and there and are some nice non-cliche touches that are meant to develop the main as well as the new characters further, but overall, it is the good old gameplay that is the heart of the series. The dialogue is unfortunately quite often cheesy especially when Cole is around. There is also a lot more emulsion this time around. 80% of the enemies are saturated with emulsion and will explode quite often when they die. The new minibosses fight with emulsion as well, so you will be seeing a lot of catapulted emulsion fireballs and gooey explosions. I have to say that I kind of miss the old flesh and bones grubs though that only come in full in the second half of the game. I also found the game to be pretty easy on hardcore difficulty (that unlocks insane difficulty), mostly because you have 3 players in your team. The AI is quick to get you back on your feet this time. Anya is also prone to throwing more than the four allocated grenades and hit the enemy almost every time. Overall, your AI team mates will do half of the job for you on the battlefield which is realistic and refreshing enough. The frag grenades can finally do realistic damage on hardcore mode when thrown (something that was not present in the second game).
The arcade campaign with teammates will have you scrambling for points and special kills much like you would in Gears of War 2 horde mode. The pop ups of your exploits and ribbons and amount of special kills will keep popping up on the screen as you keep playing.
The gameplay:
The cover is even more fluid. For instance, when you want to change cover and move closer to the enemy, you will be able to do that without accidentally jumping out of your cover. The game sort of anticipates your move and "guesses" that you want to stay in the cover and not necessarily jump out. Finally, you are able to listen to radio transmissions in single player and run instead of having to walk slowly and listen to every word. The single player and multiplayer map layout still offer plenty of opportunity to flank your enemies. However do not be fooled, there are no massive environments; in the end you still fight within the comparatively closed-off areas.
The shooting mechanic is more realistic in a sense that more recoil is added when you blind-fire. Also, you are now able to move along your base of cover while aiming instead of being constricted to the position where you are taking cover. I also love the new reticule for aiming, it adds more depth and variety to shooting. The retro lancer is an amazing piece of equipment. It has huge recoil so you can only land half a second accurate burst from afar at a time. However, up close it is a killer weapon. Blind-fire it and you will see how overpowered it is. The sawn-off shotgun is reminiscent from Doom 3 resurrection: deadly upclose; the shells also scatter throughout the entire axis of your screen covering all enemies that you may have in your immediate vicinity.
The multiplayer:
About 50-60% same from GOW 2 only improved. There are simply too many things to mention here: the ability to purchase and scavenge for weapons and ammo, the ability to build barricades and traps for the locust, the ability to carry the locust's melee weapons, the ability to buy barricades and traps for the horde mode; there are simply an infinite amount of permutations of any given match.
The horde mode is almost completely re-hauled. You will not be seeing the same pattern of enemies every 4th, 14th, 24th, etc. wave. Instead, you will see different enemies come from different directions. The enemy AI is as smart as ever. They take cover and peek from different corners every time so you may not always able to predict where they are going to pop up.
A huge mess up is the fact that if the host quits, your team get thrown back 10 or even 20 waves. This is idiotic. Uncharted did not have this problem. The host migrated, GOT the penalty for early quitting and then a new host was assigned within seconds. Why do we have to pay the penalty if the Host's mom calls him for dinner or tells him to go to bed? Why no dedicated servers Cliffy? makes me want to smash the xbox against his head.
Another idiotic thing is the fact that if you play single player online, you will get your weapons replaced with the initial default weapons once every chapter starts. For instance, the end of the first chapter of the fourth act gives you the ability to get a boom-shot and a torque bow if you get the secret achievement. However, once the next chapter starts, you lose your advanced weapons.
Another mess up is the fact that there is no over the left shoulder third person view. There are plenty of situations that I found myself in that required the view from a left shoulder in single player and multiplayer. I don't get it, The Army of Two had it, Uncharted had it, Infamous has it, why not this game? How do the 10% of lefties feel while playing this game? Such inconsideration.
The good this is that versus mode no longer gives the ability to rush and kill with a shotgun from afar, since all weapons have been re-balanced. This time you have to work for your kills in a truly competitive environment. At least, there are no immediate exploits that I can think of in the multiplayer.
The Misc:
There are plenty of unlockables as well as skins to keep you busy for the next year. There are 50 achievements this time (not counting the future DLC's of course) which are not as hard to get from the looks of it. The 4-5 new weapons and a couple of grenades is a welcome addition also. Yes, it is the same old Unreal 3 engine that simply regurgitated new environments this time.
I also think it is safe to say that Gears of War 2 multiplayer has been buried now with all the presidential citations.
Overall, you can forget about the new xbox coming out anytime soon because I think that this game single-handed extended the lifetime of Xbox for at least another one and a half years. For me personally, the game is the sole reason I have an Xbox.