Story-wise, the game is set in the not-too-far future and revolves around the three factions that have built themselves up over the years- America, Russia and the European Federation. Each army has its own individual strengths and weaknesses, such as Russia being good with heavy weapons and Europe being very technologically proficient.

WWE fights are amazing and seeped in panto-esque drama chiefly because they are very carefully scripted to be so. As soon as the behemoths involved start winging it and actually trying to win it simply becomes repetitive and confused. The basic fight mechanic is to punch and kick your opponent until you can lay on a little grapple or wrestling move, thereby stunning them to do something slightly more violent, and so on until their stamina bar is depleted and something unholy can be done to them to knock them out or keep them down long enough to be pinned.

Combat is largely unchanged from the last Gears, and is still as intense and gritty as the previous game. This time there are a few new weapons including a portable shield, a nifty flamethrower, and the addition of heavy yet powerful support weapons such as a mortar and a heavy machine-gun. The lancer machine gun also makes a reappearance, with its attached chainsaw bayonet, but you can now chainsaw a locust from behind (groin to chin) or even team up with another Gear for double the gore.

Starting out as the web-slinger, the game opens with a nicely implemented and surprisingly well-designed scene as Spiderman walks through a melee of action: S.H.I.E.L.D dropships are crashing all around him, strange symbiotes are all over the place, and Spiderman walks along with his head low as if it is all his fault- which, in fact, it is. Sounds interesting doesn't it?

The character building and upgrade mechanism is pretty much identically intact, and all of the original game modes are available in one guise or another. Some exciting sounding additions have been promised for full multiplayer, including a zombie-survival mode, but were not in evidence in the Beta.