Predicting The Metacritic Scores For 2016's Biggest Video Games

The original releases of the previous four Gears of War games have scored 94, 93, 91 and 79 respectively, the latter referring to the decidedly average spin-off, Judgment.

Gears of War 4 certainly looks visually lavish and suitably brutal, though the footage shown off so far feels at once over-familiar and needlessly different.

The action and general aesthetic feels copy-pasted from any previous game, while there's not a lot to convince that the new characters are going to fill the void left by an absent Marcus Fenix (and some atrocious dialogue in the E3 demonstration really didn't help).

It'll still get strongly positive reviews, but still feel like a bit of a comedown after the brilliance of the first three games. There's only so much formula players and critics alike can be fed before their enjoyment isn't quite so emphatic.

Also, expect a lot of complaints about co-op multiplayer being scaled back to two players.