Gears Of War 4 Review: 7 Ups & 7 Downs

6. It's Too Familiar & Repetitive

Likely for fear of alienating the fanbase, The Coalition decided to play their first game as the gatekeepers of the Gears franchise incredibly safe, opting for an extremely simple rescue-shoot-rescue core objective, while largely just dining out on a Greatest Hits collection of the series' finest moments.

The campaign is a lazy, often uninspired slog that repeats the same formulaic set-pieces again and again: split your four-person team into two groups who take alternate routes, fend off two or three waves of enemies in a very Horde Mode-esque fashion, and basically take on the same recycled bullet sponge enemies again and again.

While multiplayer shows a little more innovation, it again feels like it doesn't go far enough, for though the eSports-baiting Escalation mode is a lot of fun, Arms Race is basically just Call of Duty's Gun Game rehashed, and Dodgeball isn't nearly as interesting as it sounds.

Though it seems likely that The Coalition's next game will probably take a few more risks now that they've laid a comfortable foundation, that's no reason to applaud such a blatantly low-effort overall product.