Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)

Pros: Superb graphics, intense story, dark and rusty enviroments. Campaign is entertaining from beginning to end. Multiplayer is HIGHLY addictive, especially Horde mode...get ready to spend hours trying to reach wave 50.

Cons: Some slowdown when loading Multiplayer matches and quick loads/auto saves can be a bit glitchy but they quickly become oblivious. Cliffhanger ending will leave you questioning your actions throughout the game...

Summary: Gears of War 2 takes all the best from the original and upgrades it to the maximum potential with the help of the Unreal engine. The dirty and gritty enviroments are more crips and lifelike, more interaction with the enviroments, bigger and better weapons make grinding down enemies extremely enjoyable.

As great as the campaign is, the multiplayer is what drives this game home. Horde mode brings players together in a squad based survival mode with waves upon waves of endless Locust...it's very reminiscent of action movies such as Starship Troopers / Dawn of the Dead (except picture zombies having automatic machine guns hopped up on steroids).

I know plenty of people have wrote negative reviews on this game and praising PS3...as an owner of both Xbox 360 and PS3, I can tell you that it's all jealousy that Xbox has so many more EXCLUSIVE titles and/or because Microsoft is getting licensing of so many former PS titles (Resident Evil, Prince of Persia, Fallout).

Bottom line...if you like non-stop action games filled with gore, fighting, loud gunfire, torso ripping melee attacks, giant enemies, and the desire to step on a creatures head and it tries to crawl to safey...this is the game for you. All REAL critics are praising this game and it's already up for 5 awads are next year's VGA's.

Updated on Nov 28, 2008

Just downloaded an update through Xbox Live in response to the lagtime when starting and finding players in Multiplayer. Apparently the GOW servers weren't prepared for the onslaught of people playing online...definitely not a bad thing and glad they resolved this issue as quickly as they did...Thanks Epic!