Holy Shit that trailer was freaking awesome. I don't understand how some of you don't like the music in the trailer, it went perfectly with it and it's Black Sabbath.... BLACK FREAKING SABBATH!!  

Haha, yeah. I NEVER played GoW for the story.

People who were saying this doesn't look that impressive are crazy.

I played a TON of the Gears 3 Beta and I can straight tell you it was far prettier than Uncharted 2 was.  Without a doubt and that was a multiplayer beta of an unfinished game....

I couldn't agree more about music but this is nothing new. Independant/underground music exists across all genres and has for quite some time. Music made by artists because it's their passion comes across as more pure and therefore better IMO. It's not hard to tell who's in it for the dough. I don't usually like pop/mainstream music of any genre.

That being said though, Sabbath kicks some serious ass.

Amazing trailer, the graphics for a 360 looks insane!

Yeah Gears 2 was a great improvement but when Gears 1 first released it was the best graphics on consoles. When Gears 2 released it wasn't near the best graphics on consoles. In games like Uncharted 2 or MGS4 or others there are times when you could swear this was real life; as if the characters are actually living and breathing. MGS4 isn't as consistant with its graphics but in act 4 there are moments where the game just looks better than anyhting out there.

What I meant with my statement about 'Gears no longer being the graphical powerhouse that it once was' is that when Gears 3 releases, Uncharted 2, God of War 3, Crysis 2 and a couple others releasing this year and next will look better.

I honestly don't mean to sound like a hater towards a game that I and many others are looking forward to more than anything, but Gears 3's character models...they look like clay; they don't 'look' realistic in the least. The facial models are an obvious step up and I haven't noticed any texture pop-ins and what-not from Gears 2 but Gears 3 is what Gears 2 should have been. Seriously these are not the best graphics on consoles so why all the comments of how the graphics are INSANE!!!

And I apologize if I have made anyone think I need glasses. Seriuosly though...I'm sorry.

Edit - And I'm not saying Gears doesn't have good graphics, the graphics are good but their not 'WOW'. Let's be honest, were we expecting the graphics to be the same as Gears 2?

Because of how well done Gears 1 was at the time. Repeated success. And yes you are right, after that major title update Gears 2 is what it should have been...at release. There are still lag issues and texture pop-ins and Gears 3 probably won't have these. I know Gears 1 didn't have texture pop-ins like gears 2 or lag issues as big as gears 2 so I think it's safe to say that Gears 3 is what Gears 2 should have been. Gears 2 is only graphically a step up but Gears 1 IMO is better, faster and less laggier than Gears 2.

In essence Gears 3 will fix Gears 2. But that's my opinion.

huh..... I was expecting Drake to bust out some raps with auto-tune turned on. I hope to God they don't turn auto-tune on when he's voice acting. Auto-tune is Drake's best friend.

Bit in bold. Gears 2 was released in 2008. Which game on console had better graphics in 2008? You claim it wasn't anywhere near, I think it was one the best graphics for console by 2008. IMO the only game that looked better then either Gears by 2008 was Uncharted 1. No point mentioning Uncharted 2, that was released a year after Gears 2. You say MGS4 but I have to disagree. MGS4 only had detailed characters but everything else was pretty bland. Heck it's even sub-hd. Even Hideo Kojima was dissapointed by them (he was still getting used to the PS3 architecture).

So back to the original question...which games were better looking than Gears 2 by Nov 2008?

Wait, what? MGS4 looked bland in comparison to Gears of War 2? Even when it's sub-HD (which, mind you, I'm already aware of), it looked quite better than Gears of War 2 in my eyes. The ONLY places where I see a legitamite complaint about MGS4's graphics is some shadows and the textures of the South America level. But otherwise, MGS4 was the game that wowed me the most by console graphics standards in 2008.