Again Epic, great job. The gameplay is still fun, addicting, every taste of blood in this game leaves you wanting more and more. The graphics aren't all that different, but the overall scenery? Pure eye candy. The music? Steve Jablonsky, you did it again.

Though everything else gets an A plus, I wish I could say same for the story. While I like the idea that we are pushed into a setting where we're really scraping the bottom, I kinda enjoy that gritty feel. But even then, the plot felt lacking, even with all the Collectibles there to give you some insight to things prior to the war, but it still left alot of us wanting to know more about the locust. Which also has me to bring to the end, when Adam activates the bomb, killing all the locust and lambent. I also felt like a bit of an asshole at that end point. The locust basically were fighting out of the desire to survive, all because of a foolish decision by Myrrah. If she had known more about the positive aspects of humanity, then I am pretty sure things would have been a hell of alot more different. But still, all they wanted to do was survive, I know it all came down to an "us or them" situation, but damn, their whole species? Even then, I don't know if a peace was really possible between the two, there was just too much bloodshed between the two, the damage done was just too severe to put aside like that.

Horde mode, I only need to say this, "awesome", and Beast mode, "about damn time".

Now the multiplayer. It is just hell. Halo and call of duty are nothing compared to this in terms of difficulty. Gears multiplayer is a sink or swim situation, unless you're a fast learner, you're gonna get your ass handed to you repeatedly, and that big red icon is gonna be burned into your retinas.

The real issue with the gameplay for multiplayer here is that almost EVERYONE uses the shotgun, in fact, makes ya wonder why the fuck Epic even bothered giving us the option to use assault rifles. At first I really found it ridiculous that the shotgun is used primarily over the assault rifle, makes no sense.

For those who never played Gears before, you have four weapons, an assault rifle, a pistol, a shotgun, and a grenade slot. Typically people use the gnasher shotgun, an 8 round shotgun that deals quite a deadly blow. In multiplayer, you need to get crafty if someone is charging you with one of these, you can either fire your assault rifle, Unless you can really finger fuck the trigger like I can, do NOT use the hammerburst, a semi automatic rifle that can shoot as fast as you pull the trigger, or just run and lead him to a bunch of friendly players. Anyway, shoot at them to slow them down to a halt and finish them off, I highly advise the retrolancer, if they are coming right at you, the high firepower can save your life. Sometimes they will deviate to the side so it doesn't slow them down as much,or get shot as much, but in a narrow space, they won't have alot of options, and if you don't fuck up, you'll live to see another round.
When using one of these, You need to time your shots pretty carefully when charging someone, cause you could either just end up damaging them, or just flat out missing, both giving them a chance to whip around and hurt ya. Just hope you don't get into those silly "ring around the Rosie" situations, where you and another player are locked in a situation where you are spinning and running around in a small circle trying to hit or shoot each other, but end up missing each time, typically when you're firing from the hip or clubbing someone.

Like me, Some people use the sawedoff shotgun in multiplayer, the sawedoff is a Very powerful shotgun that can blow you away in literally one hit, but the range is only as far as you can melee. You have to be suicidal to use that gun, cause there really is only three situations in where you can use it; hiding in wait, rushing up to someone, and blasting them away before they blow you apart[good luck], and whipping it out just as they come up to you, Again, like the gnasher, Time your shots. Either way, keep in mind you only get one shot, and because of the long reload time, I highly advise you only use it in a situation where you have one enemy. Either way, this one really demands skill to use.

When someone is charging you with a shotgun, you really do need to act fast, cause when they're sprinting, that gap between you and them is gonna close pretty quickly, and all they need to do is pull the trigger.
There are times that some matches are like any normal match, where everyone is using a healthy mix of assault rifles and shotguns, but to come across this one is a bit uncommon in this game.

As for other weapons, it really is pretty difficult to say, their placement is fair enough, you have a high chance of running head first into the enemy to get that weapon. The weapon loadouts you can use are very limited at best, which is good, cause if you had the freedom to choose a longshot sniper rifle or a boomshot grenade launcher as a secondary, then you'd pretty much have a 3rd person shooter duplicate of Call of Duty, the fact that everyone picks out their own weapon loadout without having to go through the map just begs for campers and cheap loadouts.

Overall, Gears 3's multiplayer is pretty hardcore, and challenging at best. If you're looking for a challenge in using close ranged weapons, then I highly recommend Gears 3, this certainly is a new world of shooters, in Gears 3, assault rifles really are your secondary weapons.
Unless you're used to it, Each time you play the multiplayer for the first time in a while is easily comparable to when you dive into a cold pool, you either swim around for a while and lose that cold feeling, or just get out and try another time.