The Good, The Bad, and The Meh (Versus Only)

The Good:

• Movement. Less wall bouncing, more sliding and jumping. It opens up a lot of dimensions for outplaying opponents.
• The maps. Only 2 maps so far, but I've enjoyed both and feel like they both play sufficiently different but fun in their own ways.
• Power weapons. After trying the Retro Lancer, Longshot, Acid Shotgun, Mulcher, and Nades. I feel like all of these weapons are sufficiently strong and provide unique experiences. This is probably the first ever Gears where I can say the Mulcher is worth using in a majority of situations.

The Bad:

• Performance. This is easily the worst running game in my library. And that's being compared to several really demanding games like Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater. DLSS seems broken. I struggle to stay above 60 FPS at 4k (all low settings) on a 3080.
• Melee. It's useless. Especially with certain weapons like the Longshot where it locks you into a direction for each swing. In its current state no one is going to use melee.
• Ammo pickups. Seems like a small complaint, but I absolutely hate how you pick up a Gnasher when you're just taking extra Gnasher ammo. Should be an entirely different animation.

The Meh:

• Executions. I know were only looking at 2 variations of some sort of curb stomp, but, I just don't like it. I don't feel the intensity or the humiliation there, just feels like a low-effort animation.
• The Lancer. I'm all for avoiding a Gears 3 situation where a single Lancer on an active could lock down lanes, but as it stands the current Lancer is far too weak damage wise with a ton of spread/bloom. The Snub Pistol is currently a better option for any kind of ranged play.