There is something wrong with "Gears of War 3." It's too refined.
Over the roughly dozen hours I spent as the gruff soldier Marcus Fenix, rescuing my captive father and saving the planet Sera from aliens, I killed 851 Boomers, Corpsers, Grinders, Gunkers, Maulers and Zerkers. I tore them up with chainsaws. I blew their heads off with my Hammerburst rifle. I impaled them with my Lancer and detonated their chests with my Gnasher shotgun.
Yet for all of its bloodletting and lead-slinging, "Gears of War 3" feels oddly restrained, even rote. In its substitution of visual impact for creative ambition, it reminds me of a properly profitable comic-book film sequel. Pass the popcorn, and enjoy yourself.
The artifice and mastery of form in the creation of this game are obvious. Everything is where it should be. All of the right buttons are pushed (so to speak). And yet as the hugely popular "Gears" trilogy ends, the final entry offers little sense of inspiration or glee. It is engaging to play and easy on the eyes, and the extensive, inventive online modes will lend the game longevity. But in its overall presentation and storytelling, "Gears 3" never conveys the sense that its developer, Epic Games, is truly trying to outdo itself.
The original "Gears of War" was perhaps the ultimate in corporate counterprogramming. Microsoft commissioned "Gears" as an Xbox 360 exclusive and released it in November 2006, mere days before Sony introduced its rival PlayStation 3 console. Just as the original "Halo" propelled sales of the original Xbox, "Gears of War" was meant as the Xbox 360's beacon to hard-core young male gamers.
It worked. "Gears" was a new sort of gritty, testosterone-fueled, hunkered-down shooter. The heroes didn't (and still don't) leap around with jetpacks like the guys in "Halo." They lean over the top of a burned-out car and blast you with an assault rifle.
And then, three years ago, "Gears of War 2" took the concept and jacked it up to a level of bombast and spectacle that the industry had hardly seen. "Gears 2" burst with monumental, cinematic set-pieces. The combination of in-the-trenches fighting and sweeping action sequences with huge creatures, vehicles and environmental catastrophes (including entire cities collapsing into sinkholes) was engrossing.
But "Gears of War 3" never surprised me. It never made me sit up straight and say something unprintable. At times, I felt as if I were merely drifting from one room full of aliens to the next, never bored but never really taken out of myself, either.
