My buddy told me he had the game, so i went over to his place and played it there. I finished the game in a single sitting, about 8-9 hours for the entire campaign on Casual difficulty.
Graphics are superb. Wait till you see the lighting effects. So much detail and no jaggies. It looks just stupendous. Some scenes slow down heavily tho, and some fights slowed down to single digit FPS. However, the majority of the game runs at full speed, and very minor tearing which i had to specifically look for or i wouldnt have seen it. The detail on the characters is amazing, but sometimes the animations look unfinished, like the jumping over animation. Other animations like jumping down a ladder look absolutely amazing. Its not perfect but man it is absolutely stunning. I was also hoping the game would use FMV to hide the loading, and it did for a lot of the game, but a lot of times i saw a now loading screen to load up some levels. Just a tiny nitpick.
Sound is amazing. Not much to say. What this game would sound like in 7.1 PCM Lossless audio, man, that would be insane, but its still very good in dd5.1 audio. Another thing is that there are lots of moments where if you arent prepared, you die in a single hit. I hate that style of cheap gameplay since its mainly to extend the amount of time you end up playing rather then engaging gameplay.
The feel of the game is 100% gears, but the scenarios you play through and the amount of polish really does help it not feel like gears 1.5, although a lot of people will be calling it that. There were also a few moments that were genuinely terrifying, and some very well written scenes that rival a lot of movies you see these days. The game plays like a summer blockbuster movie, and its really class act. I felt the ending lacked a bit, and that they really should have added more focus to the story, although whats given is amazing compared to gears 1.
Ive been gaming since the atari 2600, and the first gears of war totally took me by surprise (first shooter game i actually loved, which in turn helped me play other shooters like COD4, etc), and became one of my fav games of all time.
Gears 2 is now the best game ive ever played. It was really amazing and i cannot wait to get my copy once its released. I think i unlocked 22 achievements on his gamertag just by playing the single player campaign through.