ok graphics + lack of story + weak character design + uncalled gory + chainsaw + no puzzles = unpopular review
I feel that Gears of War has been hyped up as a great game for all the wrong reasons. While I do agree that GoW is a great game, my reasons are radically different than most of the other reviewers.
So let me start by saying that Gears of War is one of the most fun games I played. Notice I am not using the word "best." If fun is the only attribute you base your game on, then you may rate it differently. However, best for me means something more along the lines of memorable. I played many games which where great fun, which were forgotten as soon as I turned of the TV (Like most TV shows). A "best" game leaves some emotion inside you long after you played the game. Gears of War does not do that. Gears of War is more close to Tetris than it is to other mature games. But more about that later.
On with the bad things first:
The Graphics. The Graphics are OK. The entire web is worshipping Gears of War graphics, and I simply do not understand why. Yes, it is true that this game looks better than all the other 360 games out there. But this game is using Unreal Engine 3. And for an engine that has won awards as being the best engine 3 years in a row without releasing any game, I am extremely disappointed. This is not Gears of War's fault. It is Gamespot's fault (as well as the other websites praising UE3 when UE3 did not exist). Either way, Gears of War does not look "ASTONISHING" as other guys would want you thinking. The game has its moments when it look very good, but those moments of greatness really point out the rest of the game where things are less polished, and feel rushed. (and yes I did play it on a HDTV). I personally, don't care about graphics one bit, but I am bothered by all the "amazing grphx" comments. Nobody seems to call things by their name. What I am trying to say is that, while you will like the graphics, do not expect them to be astonishing, as you may be disappointed. Lack of story. Well... there is some story... but it's such a boring cliché, by the time Gears of War 2 will come out, you will wonder what the first one was about. Weak character design. The little character design the game has, is decent. However, beware; there is not much of it. If you play GoW, you won't play it for characters. It isn’t half life, nor RE4. Gory. The game is very bloody. And while that does not bother me that much, I am bothered by the large number of people who enjoy that stuff. It is disturbing to know that people love seeing so much blood on their screen. The game would have been just as awesome without it. But now that it's there, I don' think that the blood should be a selling point. Comments from the gamespot staff like "The best use of chainsaw ever" are really gross. I guess it's one think if you joke around with your friends once in a while, but otherwise it's a disgusting and disturbing thing. If you find yourself enjoying that, I think you should talk to a doctor. Or call Jack Thompson. I hate console shooters, but this is an exception. It is a simple game, where you simply go forward and shoot. There are no puzzles (the very few you actually encounter, are too easy to be called puzzles), but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The game play has been tweaked to match the "go forward - shoot" style of play, by eliminating health packs, adding weapons and ammo everywhere in your way, and placing checkpoints frequently. So why is Gears of War good? Gears of War is great for its Tetris-like gameplay. You find yourself playing, you don't know why, but you just want to shoot one more dude. The lack of any down times like solving puzzles, looking for health etc, really speed up the game, making it a continuous action pack. The combination of this things, make it a pretty good game.
However the thing I enjoyed the most in Gears of War was the ability of playing the single player in co-op mode. Since the days of Quake I have been waiting for a game that would allow me and my friends to do that and all we ever got was half polished mods (some of them our own). GoW was great since, being a console game, it forced us to play on the same couch, same TV, something you cannot do with computer games (you cannot share a mouse. :))
The fact that you never feel lonely in the game, and there is always some other Don soldier guy to help you out, eliminated a lot of the boredom the other shooters come with. This was one of the most basic and yet most innovative things about Gears of War, which made the game stand out from the rest.
Additionally, the 3d person view and the ability to easily hide behind any elevation in the terrain really changed the gameplay to something new. In no other game (that I know of), are you allowed to fire without looking. And in no other game does that really matter. I may be fooled, but it seems to me the AI is taking into accounts your shots and if you fire, even without aiming, the enemy will be less likely to approach you. So in other words, to make a long story short, this is the first game, when it made sense to fire my gun for cover fire. No more "BOOM headshot!" gameplay was very welcome for a change.
So how good is Gears of War?
Well if you have a 360, you should get it. I mean, what else are you going to play? There aren't many games exclusive to the system, and the once that are, generally suck. Is it a Halo killer? Well I don't know. I find Halo to be a very weak game in comparison to other PC shooters. Gears of War succeeds because it goes about things differently. Halo... just copies other traditionally successful games... and it's success is attributed to the fact that it was the first fps that made it on the MS console... If you don't have the system, that's another story. While Gears of War is a great game, I don't think it's worth buying a system for a game. Especially since the game will most likely make it on other platforms sooner or later. (They all do). Few games justify the purchase of a system. RE4 did for Gamecube (but GC < $100) and maybe Zelda does for Wii (but that's still questionable). 2 games, maybe (like MGS4 and FFXII). But since there are no 2 good games out yet, I would wait. Keep in mind GoW is very short.
I will give this game a 9.0 since it is clearly better than the mediocre games out there, but is by no way match to RE4 or other games like that, which have fun gameplay, innovation and some memorable moments, interesting characters and a longer single player campaign.