I've played Gears of War since 2007 now and it angers me to see it fall so far behind, being that it was one of the leading titans. I thought I'd post up my opinion of the perfect Gears, you can choose to agree or disagree, thought I'd just throw it up for debate.
General Gameplay: Gears 3 movement, Gears 1 Guns (noises, looks etc), Gears 1 Bullet Registration, Gears 3 smoothness (no lag in bullets or movement, rarely). NO STOPPING POWER.
I think the playlists would need to be changed and they should be in the following order: Execution, King of the Hill, Guardian, Wingman, Competitive Playlist (No Sawed Off, Retro, Hammerburst). I think that Warzone and TDM should be eradicated completely along with quick matches. Execution was the main gametype and always should be. Team death match took away the Gears of War feel imo and was a bad addition to the game. Although Warzone has always been around I've always seen it as a pointless game mode, a poor mans execution. As for quick matches, in my honest opinion, one of the main reasons why Gears of War has lost pretty much all it's activity. It was better when you had private games and ranked. The private was for fun, the ranked was where you would go for the win, for me it got to the point where people would prefer quick cause they could get fake stats off bots and leave the game if they were struggling, in ranked it was an incentive to stay in the game not to mess up your stats.
I also feel that the game should not be region blocked, it's annoying if you're European and you want to play late at night and can't find a game and it must be the same for any other region. It should just have preferences. Like same country, continent or anywhere.
I like the inclusion of character dlc, it's always refreshing/exciting to see new DLC and try out a new gun camo or a character, what I don't agree with is them tempting us to buy season passes and chucking at us content after content. I simply think content once every 3-4 months would suffice and at a low price, no more than £5 (or whatever that is in your currency)
I loved it when Gears 3 did stuff like big head mode, pumpkin head mode etc, was fun and it felt like they were interacting with us, yeah it may be simple and some of you may have found it annoying, but it kept the game interesting. Also it would be really cool if there was a news feed on the main menu, with updates. Like it would tell you who is Number1 this week and such and such, that way if you play them it makes things more interesting and it gives people the recognition they deserve. Interaction is honestly key, how cool would it have been if there was a poll on the gears menus asking if you'd prefer to see Hoffman (G1) or Thai (G2) back in the game and whichever one gets the highest they put into the game (FOR FREE). Interaction really keeps people on the game. I think us Gears players were neglected by epic and I don't blame people for getting fed up with it.
BRUTAL match penalties. Honestly. I hate it when a teammate leaves. If you quit the game you should be punished, I get that some people lag out so it wouldn't be fair on them but the game should detect consistency, like if a person lags out/ quits once every hour then just a 5 minute, but if they do it more and more then give em hours of ban time of take away a rank or something. Just annoyed me how no one took the leaving the game seriously.
In the ideal Gears beast mode and horde would stay in the game, it's nice if you don't wanna play online and you have a friend over or something just to play against bots. I don't think it should rank you up online but it would be pretty cool if they rewarded you with skins or something instead (like savage Theron).
MAPS, better maps, I'm bored of seeing Gridlock, it worked on Gears1 it suited the flow of the game. But changing the theme of the map doesn't make it any better, either release it the way it originally was, or take it out completely. I think it would also be good if they stuck with the symmetrical/ 3 lane rule maps. There have been so many bad maps in the past, like Hail for instance. Just completely scattered and dark. Maps should be all about control and fighting for power weapons and using cover strategically, not camping or putting power weapons on each teams spawn so it's just a race to who gets it first. Take War Machine for example, perfect map, symmetrical, 3/4 ways to go, power weapon on each end, plenty of cover. It doesn't get any better than that.
Imo the perfect map set on a new Gears would be AT LEAST 8 new maps and then some old maps not changed such as: War Machine (GoW1) Clocktower (GoW1) Jacinto (GoW2) Avalanche (GoW2) and maybe a few others but you get the idea. I still think it was a disgrace that they release a game at full retail price and it only included 4 maps, I still feel like a victim to be honest.
Unique campaigns! I hated the judgment campaign, with the field orders and stuff, it's just stupid, it should be fast, difficult and emotional. That's what Gears is all about.
And lastly BALANCED teams! it's very annoying for an experienced GoW player to team with a noobie and it must be confusing/daunting for a new person to Gears to go up against a 5 man stacked team team firing etc. It just makes people frustrated and they tend to quit.
I can't really think of anything else but I'm sure there is more, feel free to speak your mind to me. I want a discussion going and I want Gears to hear us, imo Gears could be a 10/10 game easily, they just need to get the right balance and interact with us, their money makers.