Gears of war is a third person game. It has some brand new gameplay ideas such as the new cover system. This is somewhat realistic and keeps the game play flowing. Taking cover isn't the only advantage. You can roll, summersalt forward, and do a pretty cool backwards maneuver. All these maneuvers have their own purpose and are pretty fun to do. However like just about every other game out there this game does have gameplay flaws. All the keys to survival are on one button. The A button. This button controls taking cover getting uot of cover in unique ways(like SW.A.T turn, leaping over, diving,ect, some pretty cool stuff) summersalting, dodging, sprinting the backwards maneuver. All these actions on one button can have you doing one thing when you really want to do another. For example: if you are aprothing an object and plan to use it as cover,when you hit the A button you guy could end up summersalting past it leaving you out in the open in which you will probably die. Situations like this can lead to frustration however the more you play the more you will learn to react and counter unlucky insidinses. This game has a real story with really well developed characters. The dialog is very clever at times and each of you men has their own personality. You could very well find your self liking and disliking characters for real reasons. Like you may not like the way they act or you may like the way they act. So you won't find you self liking a guy for his skill in battle or not liking him for his flaws in a fight, or at least most of the time. Which brings us to A.I. The A.I. was fairly good. Your guys will leap away from explosions, pick up other weapons and can save you life. But just because they can doesn't mean they will. They will screw up from time to time but nothing big enough to lower the score. Enemy A.I was pretty impressive. They will flank and they are pretty good shots which gives you even more of a reason to take cover. Physics were amazing. You can blow an enemy into pieces and even them the physics are great when the pieces hit the ground. Graphics were mind blowing. Everything was so detailed. Its still one of the best looking games to date even two years later. As far as weapons go this game has a fairly small but wicked deadly arsenal. When I say deadly I mean deadly. Weapons such as the sniper rifle are awesome. You can literely CAP you enemys with it. The torque bow is pretty cool. Its a bow with an exploding arrow. The Hammer of dawn and the primary weapon the Lancer, a full auto assult rifle with a chainsaw attached to the bottom. This game is really violent. From the chain sawing to the curb stomping its all satisfying. The only things that keep this from getting perfect was the gameplay flaws and I didn't like the way some of the guys acted but if you have a 360 I recommend this. It PWN3S.… Expand

This game is well made and just brings you into the environment. The cover and running are my favorite parts of the game.

Fun, fast paced and heavily-violent gameplay and great graphics for when it released. Difficulty can be infuriating at times, both in single player and multiplay, but that's just part of the challenge. Definitely a hardcore shooter.

One of the best 360 games, Gears of War is a game that truly delivers. And will go down as one of the most important games to come out under the xbox brands. Next to Halo this is the most important franchise for the 360.

Gears of war is an excellent all round gaming experience. I was a bit cautious when buying it because of the huge amount of hype surrounding, but I was certainly not disappointed. The game takes place on the Planet Sera which in many aspects is very similar to Earth. The main story resolves around a war between the humans and the Locust Horde, a skinless gorilla like race from under the ground. Throughout the game you battle through beautiful set pieces such as burned out palaces and mansions. The story was very good but was hampered by the fact that the friendly AI is no where near as sophisticated as that of the Locust. However any of these issues resolve themselves when playing in co-op. The online is brilliant. It is very, very hard however compared to most games until you realise the essentials. Cover is key and you need to stick together as a team to survive. All in all Gears of War is a great game with an awe-inspiring soundtrack, voice acting and graphics with solid gameplay but just could have had better AI in single player.… Expand

This game is awesome. Alot of folks are sayings its not innovative and its not as good as the hype but what this game is is FUN. its graphics are smoking, load times are fast, the creatures are interesting. Havnt had this much fun with a game since halo 2.

Excellent game with well paced action and bits of story. The roadie run has a great gritty war feel with on the fly field of view changes. The graphics are gorgeous yes, but thats not all that sells it. The level design is well done and easy to follow. Weapons are balanced. Its done 3rd person right with excellent cameras and action. A must have app for the 360.

Gears of War is fun every time I pick up the controller whether I'm playing co-op with a friend on the highest difficulty or going online to see if I can unlock that last achievement. The duck and cover gameplay adds realism to the combat, immersing the player, and is much smoother and easier to do than any other game I've played. Usually any glitchiness in it is due to human error. The textures amaze me everytime I look at them, many of the settings look so realistic that I forget I'm sitting on a couch. The A.I. will require you think about how to kill them, especially on higher difficulties. The combat consists of small guerilla skirmishes, with multiple ways to approach and attack enemies, eliminating linear feelings and adding variety. Character developement and voice acting was fairly well done, with a small exception of the main character being a little overdone. My only complaint is that the setting of aliens emerging from the ground could have had so much potential for the combat, but was not utilized. You might also get a little lost on the plot if you don't already know something about it from their website or don't listen carefully to the cutscenes. An excellent buy for the 360 with great replayability on higher difficulties, co-op, and multiplayer.… Expand

Overall an excelent game but the horror/survival parts, while they do get your heart rate going, are more of a nusiance rather than something that enhances the game.

This game is for the most part phenomenal. The presentation is spot on, the graphics are better than any other game ever, the sound is booming, the enemy A.I. makes Halo 2's look weak and the controls are pretty tight. The friendly A.I. is the second worst part of the game as they do nothing but get themselves killed constantly and don't listen to orders. You'll numerous times go out to get them up and die yourself. The story seems to grow on you the further you play, but isn't as engaging as Halo's. Although the graphics are better than anything else ever, they have still been toned down quite a bit since May 2005 when it was first said to be running in-game and the anti-aliasing isn't running at full steam so there are quite a bit of jaggies with the occasional pop-up and texture swapping. The controls are tight, but using the A button for running AND getting behind cover was a bad design choice. You get stuck on objects when you'd rather be running and sometimes you want to get behind cover and it doesn't work at all leaving you open for death. All in all though, I have never had this much fun with a single player game. It plays like a great cross between GRAW and Halo. Kinda realistic, but not so realistic that it gets tedious like GRAW does. Now to the worst part of the game: Multiplayer. The good stuff is the multiplayer looks exactly like single player, meaning it wasn't toned down graphically like just about every other game online on the 360. Now to the bad: There are NO RESPAWNS so for those of us that don't have the time to master this game but just want to play occasionally we are screwed into sitting out most of the time. The controls don't work quite as well online, maybe because of the lag spurts, but it still hurts the gameplay. You'll get behind someone and go to use the chainsaw and nothing happens even when you aren't getting shot at or anything. Just a half animation that even your dead teamates see and say WTF? Why didn't it work? You'll also get chainsawed by someone that's 10 feet away too. Again, a lag issue. But it is to be expected with the engine pushing these graphics with 8 players all at once. Only a few of the weapons can actually kill someone, like the special ones lying around the map but USUALLY not the ones you start with, so most of the time they will only go down from regular weapons and you have to run up to them and kill them with one of your melee attacks. This kinda sucks considering throught the entire campaign these standard weapons work as they should..killing tools. The shotgun can kill someone up close online, but trying this will usually get you chainsawed. The problem with shooting someone and them only going down and not dying is that you just earned a kill and now you have to run out in the open across the map to finish them off leaving yourself vulnerable to being killed while the person you just downed gets back up. And that's how most kills work when you do it with bullets first, so I feel it was a bad design choice making it so easy for people to go down only to have the person that runs out to finish them off get chainsawed again for the 100th time. Basically though, the MP comes down to who can chainsaw who first. This is why I only give this game a 9. You see, the MP is already one of the most simplistic MP games ever, which works better than some other deeper games, but gets cheap when the whole thing comes down to the chainsaw as most of the weapons don't do enough alone. Most of the time people don't even try to play using weapons, cover and the entire map. They just run to the middle of the map and chainsaw it out or run for the sniper rifle making most matches last about 30 seconds. All in all, a great game with a phenominal single player experince I can't wait to play through again and again on the differnt difficulties. The multiplayer on the other hand feels a little thrown together and is nothing more than a showcase for the chainsaw and death animations as nothing else really ever gets you a kill except the occasional sniper rifle or torque bow and the curb stomp which is another move you have to do after downing someone leaving yourself vulnerable yet again. It's still worthy of a purchase anyway just to see it in motion. COD3's online plays better and offers plenty more options, other than the now sorely missing cover feature, but after seeing the graphics in this one COD3 looks like a last gen game making it hard to play at all. Too bad the MP is so bland and cheap in GOW or this would be an almost perfect game. Bots would have helped a lot for practice seeing as the enemy A.I. in the story is better than most human players so far and actually look for cover and don't use cheap tactics like the constant chainsaw for kills.… Expand

Those who are giving this game a negative rating becasue of the controls have been playing to much Halo. Yes, you have to work a littlle at getting the dive and roll thing down, yes there is some lack in variation of gameplay, but saying this game is anything but great is silly. Your getting desensitized. As for the fellow who compared this to PC games.....try playing a game of this caliber on a 399 dollar PC.… Collapse

This is by far the best Xbox 360 game to date. I'm not much for games like Oblivion where you run around and catapult glowy crap at elves in the woods. I really just want to shoot stuff, making Gears of War the game for me. It is visceral, original, and fantastically produced. Everything from the gameplay to the incredible graphics, this is on finely tuned game. The story is a tad lacking, but every other aspect of the game more than compensates.… Expand

Excellent graphics, physics, gameplay, sound and most importantly original ideas. The way context sensitivity is used is pure genius and even though the campaign is short, this game has unlimited replay value on Xbox Live. Also it has a gun with a chainsaw attached to it.

Brilliant game the gameplay, graphics and gunfights are absolutely amazing but if you're not into online gaming this isnt the game for you because the plot is crap and the single player game is so short it's unreal but online is the best game you could ever play.

By far the best game for Xbox 360. The most unique too the campaign is great, although it is very short, that is the reason for the 9.

Gears of War is unarguably the best game to be released on either Xbox 360 or PS3. Wii's Zelda may be just as good). It is also the only game of any of the three systems to take advantage of next gen graphic possibilities. there are a few week points but they don't really take away from the greatness of the game. The game's story plot is far too underdeveloped as is the single player campaign. If this game is truly the third person's Halo, it needs to have a better context. Gun diversity needs to be improved as do the attack capabilities of the locusts who all have very similar attributes.… Expand

This game is one of the most compelling, and greatest gameplay ever created. I don't believe there was too much over-hype for this game, and was everything I hoped it would be. Only thing is that I wish the music from the commercial was in the game.

Truly delivers the next-gen experience. Stunning graphics, perfect gameplay and a high replay value make this game a must have. The multiplayer is great and the co-op campaign shows at what next games must look at. the only thing out of the pack is some good unlockable content, aside the achievements, to reward players especially in the insane difficulty.

this is an amaising game ,just so musçch fun to play JOHN S .AND JOE B are blind or just playing dumb i feel so sad for them,i bet they suck at the game so thats why they talk to much bullsh...
the game is just superv in every way .... -buy it it going to be your favorit -

Being a FPS Fan I thought I would not enjoy this third person type of gameplay. But This game's controls and gameplay really rock. Taking cover is a cool new way to play a shooter game. The only negative is the muted colors which Should have been a bit more colorful but not Too much.

Gears of War wasn't made for everyone. Those who are enjoying to not appreciate hard work of developers should not even dare give bad rating. it would be better to keep them to yourself rotting inside. If you are not the type of gamer who stand still during a gameplay and admire what you can't do to be inspired, you should not waste textlines about Gears of Wars. A true gamer would never rate this gamer below 7… Expand

How can you justify giving this game a 1, or did I even spot a zero? The only way you can justify that is if you open up the front cover and were dissapointed to see that there was no disc inside. Perhaps a sweet instead??? Come on, the graphics were awesome, and people who say there is no detail must be blind.

First of all, this game was amazing. I'm not saying it's like Halo but it is damn good. One thing that could have been improved was the story mode. The graphics were good but the weapons could have been a bit more exciting. Like the chainsaw/gun. Thats good. It's great fun playing Gears of War.

3 days until #2 arrives, and I have been playing #1 all over again to hone my skills, and I have to say that even though I have a MASSIVE pile of unplayed games, this has not left my drive since I put it in again!!! Still one of the BEST games ever made!!! Here's to #2!!!

One of my first games on the X-Box 360. At firsti thought it was a terrible game. But now that i finnaly undersatnd the story and the gameplay it is a fantastic game that most people would love. My only downside is the diffiuclty, it either mantains the same, gets easier or harder. But where else would you get a game that has a chainsaw!? Overall, a 9.5

State of the art graphics, a great multi player, and great gameplay lead to this EPIC success.

Would be a 10 if it wasn't for the extremely hard Beserkers and General RAAM. Other than that, a fantastic masterpiece.

Brilliant. It's technically superb and flat out fun. I've never played a game which inspires a player to take cover and evade fire instead of rushing straight into it. The level design is excellent and the atmosphere is thick and tense. A classic. Together with Elder Scrolls: Oblivion...this game makes the 360 the system of choice for the Next Gen thus far.