Rarely does the intensity let up at any point through the campaign. One of the most significant improvements relates to this pacing, which had been a minor problem before. Here you find a well-balanced, appropriately difficult game. Set it on casual and it's cake. Bump it up to hardcore and it's a challenge. Never is there a section too frustratingly uneven that you get stuck and that's a huge fix over the first game. Even boss battles have been tweaked to eliminate the annoyances in the original. The single player campaign has been enhanced to great effect, making it more accessible and enjoyable.

An equal number of enhancements have been made to multiplayer too. Joining split-screen and online cooperative play through the campaign is a full suite of competitive modes. Warzone definitely returns as the favorite, although adjustments to modes featured in the first game come back in much better form. Assassination shows up as Guardian--each team has a leader which allows that team's members to respawn. Take that leader out and the team becomes vulnerable. Execution remains the same, as does Annex. Totally new are Wingman and Submission. Teams of two-players duke it out for kill points in Wingman, whereas Submission involves using a human shield in a twisted version of capture-the-flag. It's a tad confusing during Submission matches for it to be as competitive as Warzone or Execution, but it's unique if nothing else.

Also new is Horde mode, which pits you and up to four others against waves of computer-controlled enemies. All of this can be played online or off, split-screen or LAN, public or private--there's even a photo mode, if you want to take snapshots of your matches. Few games pack as many features and push multiplayer to this degree.

Gears of War 2 takes the formula established by the original and polishes it to great effect. Everything from the pacing of the campaign, tuned difficulty, added weapons and enemies, and slew of multiplayer options demonstrates mastery in design that all action games aspire, yet precious few achieve. Not everything is rosy--chalk the poor story and lame characters as being yet another victim of cheesy game writing. That's excusable, though. What you get for putting up with the one-liners and cowboy hats is one hell of a ride.

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