Gears of War: Judgement is often referred to as a low for the series, the black sheep, the bastard step child, the "n word" of the series, etc. But here's the thing... from a pure gameplay perspective, primarily the campaign, its the best paced, most enjoyable, and most replayable game in the series.

I completed my journey of replaying all the 360 era Gears games via Xbox BC. I took it slow, played periodically so it wouldn't feel like a grind. Just finished Gears Judgement today and it was actually the fastest game I played through. Its honestly the most fun I've had replaying a game in this series as well. It doesn't have the grittiness, story telling, or even feel as ambitious as numbered games in the series. But again, from a gameplay and pacing perspective its the best aspects of Gears gameplay with more action and minor tweaks that just make it more enjoyable. For example, you aren't limited to a pistol while using a shield or meat shield. Being able to use a shotgun with a shield is so much more satisfying while taking out a crowd of enemies. The controls are also designed to feel more like a traditional shooter which I like. There is a good variation of enemies not present in past games giving more variety in the challenges.

The game is literally just moving from a short moment of story telling to a wave of enemies for 6 chapters (about 42 sections so about 42 wave battles). To make the gameplay a little more interesting they have optional challenges for each wave mixing up your weapons, environment conditions, enemies, etc. Given it was the last Gears game for 360 its also the most visually refined so this is a last gen game that still manages to impress. The final battle is pretty nuts, so much happening at once with great visuals.

Gears always handled split screen well and this game is no exception. Its a fun single player experience and easy to recommend for couch co-op. In a nutshell, this under rated gem is what many modern games fail to do which is just be fun! Heil Xbox BC! Uncharted: Lost Legacy also deserves praise for being a fun fast paced game, while still managing to tell a good story. Gunplay is meh, but its one of my favorite games from Sony.

Just a shame this doesn't have a 4K patch for the X1X. Gears 2 and 3 look fantastic in spite of using the same old assets at a higher resolution, so much hidden detail. Unreal Engine did miracles with so little.

People still playing it? I recall loving it when it released.

It is the worst of the series

I love Gears, but Judgment is shit. As you said it's just battling waves after waves. Extremely boring.

It's the worst in the franchise far and away - it's not even close. A lot of the improvements you mentioned were more like detriments to many as it casualized the game too much. It tried to really de-emphasize the cover mechanics, and the multplayer essentially ended up being a bunch of guys running around with a lancer and shooting without even having to aim (because the game has a transparent reticle in the middle of the screen at all times, which meant you couldn't punish players through their lag animation when they were taking the time to aim). I understand that a large part of the old Gears games was abusing the cover system to jump from wall to wall, and also figuring out how to aim the Gnasher without using the aim button, but I'd think people who've played the games can at least understand what I'm talking about. The old games made the aim button a crutch that could easily be punished and you had to learn how to not use it, and the cover mechanics had a high skill ceiling even though they were deceptively simple. I have no doubt that people most likely tried to replicate the old games in a local setting, but matchmaking was never the same, and multiplayer rarely felt rewarding.

The game launched with like four maps and while it ended up getting one or two free, it was way too late. It didn't have Locust in multiplayer. Had no Down But Not Out. It had the shittiest armor skins I've ever seen in a game, and it didn't have very many unlockable characters - which was insane considering that Gears of War 3 had so much fanservice in this department. Also even the gun skins were worse and a vast majority were microtransaction based, unlike Gears 3 (though that did have skins for sale and skin packs).

If we're only talking about non PvP content, then the game still sucked. The campaign had a shit story and no tension. It was basically just a horde mode with a loosely connected story, which is so far removed from how many unique parts where in the original trilogy. It didn't have a horde mode and instead traded it with a half baked PvP mode. And the only good campaign was a small post-game campaign that you unlock.

Yeah, it's basically not a good game in almost any way except the technical aspects. But good for you for enjoying it. I wish I could.

It's the only one I've never finished. I keep wanting to play it but I never do. Bought it on day one for Xbox 360 and somewhere along the way, my enjoyment just died out. I've gone back and totally replayed every other game in the series multiple times. After Gears 4 got the 4K update, I began to replay all of the games again from the first one. I made it to about 2/3 of Gears 3 before getting distracted by some other game--but the whole time, I was thinking "I'll finally finish Judgment...but do I want to finish Judgment?"

I was underwhelmed by Gears of War 4, too. Hyped for Gears 5.

I loved it just for OverRun, it was great fun. Never tried the campaign. I got bored of Gears campaigns very quickly after one. On Gears 2 I think I made it 1/3 through. Gears 3 I literally did not even finish the opening level. Gears 4 I made it a few levels in. Just not a fan of the corridor run, firefight, corridor run, firefight formula.

But you make it sound as if Judgement is very different, maybe I should check it out.

The campaign was ass but the MP is still my fav, I love the fast paced TD and Overrun is incredible and had more potential if they expanded it.

People hated Judgment because of multiplayer, not because of campaign.

And for a Gears of War game it was indeed a horrible piece of shit. Blindfire reticle, no DBNO, no perfect active reload damage, no stopping power for guns, KotH mode changed to a 3-hill Domination bullshit, asymmetrical maps and only 4 of them and so on. Even things like vertical movement felt out of place in a game like Gears of War and made the game look like a bad joke. It was like any other fast paced 1st person shooter. They even killed gnasher duels with that overpowered melee. No need to master the hipfire, just hit B to stun enemy and deal massive damage, then shoot with a blindfire reticule WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?! Then they took back centre-screen aiming too instead bullets coming from the tip of your gun like it was in Gears 2-3.

But I thought campaign had a good gameplay. Iirc most of the gameplay changes were only for multiplayer and stuff like DBNO were still in the campaign. It was just that the story was non-existent and Baird just wasn't good enough for a main character. I remember it being fun to play though.

Then there was Overrun, a masterpiece of a multiplayer mode. It only had 4 maps but I'd say Overrun alone was worth the 60€ I paid for Judgment. Played the shit out of this mode and I so much hope they'll bring it back for Gears 5. It would bring in more casual players too.

I've been playing alot of Gears of War 4 multiplayer lately, mostly my favorite mode King of the Hill. I'd say it's overall the best Gears of War game by a big margin, actually. You might want to check out the campaign. It has that dark and gritty feel of original Gears but with with more exciting and better pacing of action.