One more thing to keep in mind. This game is like at least 5-6 months away.

If this is how good it looks now, I have seriously raised my expectations now unless like I said the bigger areas are half assed we'll see tonight.

What do they mean early in development for the screen shot? The Heighest looks better then the E3 trailer but I need to see it in motion

It's from the Alpha build. This is from the GDC showing in March or whenever it was.

Wow.... people are so optimistic!

5 - 6 months isn't a long time to be working on graphics and upgrading graphics, that's part of engine development, so the core 'look' of the game will not change, the only thing that will change are a few extra effects that are added in in the end and little details here and there.

I know this post will sound like a bashing post, but seriously you can see heaps from this screen shot that tell me it's going to be a big disappointment.

The character art is good, and the model detail looks fantastic.

The shadow? What the? The PS3 can do better than that? block polygonal mess, not self shadowed.

The textures in the background and the wall are shocking, they remind me of Super Mario Sunshine disgusting rock wall texture, and the viewpoint gun just looks low detailed and not overly impressive on the texture side of things... quite disappointed am I.

That said, it's only one screenshot and it's a bit un-fair to judge on that, but I think this game deserves all of the scrutiny it deserves since Sony touted that CG trailer as 'in game'.

So you're saying in 6 months they can't improve shadows and wall textures? Assuming this is from GDC (which it is) then that's 10 months. That's not enough time?

Ok IGN has a bigger version of the screen. You can see clearer. The level of detail on that guy, the creases and wrinkles, even teh way the pants look on the character so well done. Look at the crotch area of the guy even so much more detailed than any thing I have seen in game character as far as the waist down in detail. Hell the Gears guys looked like tree stumps waist down...

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/748/748475/img_4692210.html

Gonna try and fit the important part here, still downsized:

The lighting only looks surreal because there's a local light from a bullet mid flight in the scene, causing the enemy's shadow to be blown up in size.

Still this kinda reminds me of half life 2 with higher geometry.

Notice the two lines going through where the oxygen mask meets the face, you can see the tiniest details.

The detail on the two straps on that pack thing on the waist is also stunning.

Nope, that's possible but we will see how it ends up turning out, I know i'm not alone in that I'm going to pick this game to shit.

EDIT - honestly that higher res version makes the game look even worse... I'm sure Gears of War looks far superior to this.