Bullets fly over your head as you hide behind cover to perfectly time when to aim down your sights and kill your most hated online enemy.  Or surviving wave after wave of a Locust onslaught.  Or even kill the humans that are trying to survive your onslaught; there is much to love in Gears of War 3.

Nerddom rating: 9 out of 10

Full review and possible spoilers after the jump.  You have been warned.

 Campaign

Emulsion has been turning Locust into Lambent without hesitation; and now the Lambent are a major threat to Sera in this new addition to the Gears of War franchise.

Marcus Fenix and the rest of the C.O.G.s in Delta must travel to a hidden military base in order to reach Marcus’ father so they can stop the Lambent.  However, Queen Myrrah has captured Adam Fenix and is making him work on a way on killing off the Lambent without also killing the Locust who have been in contact with the emulsion.  But the planet is running out of time.  Adam knows that if he were to take the time to change his Lambent killing machine, the planet will already be gone, especially since it has started spreading to the humans. 

Please, Mr. Fenix is my father.

I had a great time playing this campaign, from the gritty look of the world to the awesomely fun boss battles.  Seriously, the boss battles in this game are fantastic, they are not exactly easy, but they also aren’t impossible and they keep your adrenaline pumping.  The game has a great feature in the beginning of the boss battle that will give you a tip on how to beat it if you can’t seem to figure out where the big baddie’s weak point is.

Horde

Horde mode is much like it was in Gears of War 2 but there are some differences that make a great experience even better.  A new addition to the Gears 3 horde mode is the base defenses.  With this you can set up the area you’ve decided to hunker down in by buying things like razor wire to block entrances, to sentry turrets, and even to the gun toting mech exosuit, the Silverback.  This adds an extra level of strategy into this fairly simple game type, such as what should you buy and what should you upgrade.  Even though everything costs money, it isn’t difficult to acquire it, all you have to do is kill things.

This is a fun mode to play if you just feel like killing things.

Beast

 This new mode is basically horde mode, with one vital difference, you play on the locust side.  In this mode you first get to choose between five different tier one beasts, such as tickers and drones and as you kill people you gain money.  By gaining money you will get the ability to use more powerful beasts such as the unstoppable Berserker.  But, there is a kicker, you only have one minute to kill the humans in each round.  Thankfully, however, when you kill people time is added to the timer.

This mode is extremely fun and it gets even better with friends.

Multiplayer

Most everyone loves the battle that is multiplayer, and the Gears 3 multiplayer keeps that love alive.  However, it is very similar to the multiplayers in the previous Gears games.  But, like I almost never say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and it is very true for the Gears franchise.  Although, some may say that the a few of the weapons are overpowered, the multiplayer experience is still a great one.

If ever you’re tired of killing mindless A.I.s, head on over to multiplayer and test your skills on real people.