Well, since I do work in the video game industry I do have a good idea of how things flow but I don't really need to know that because it's just common sense. 

Epic takes their time on everything they do.  If I remember correctly Gears of War was released towards the end of 2006.  If Gears of War 2 were released at the end of 2008, that would be a two year project cycle.  Two years is not a long time and I promise you they will take longer than two years to complete that game.  You only take two years to make something if you're on a tight schedule with a stingy publisher breathing down your neck.  Microsoft Game Studios knows Epic is a proven studio and knows that if they need the time they can have it because they will make a quality game that will make money.

If I had to take a guess, I would expect Gears of War 2 mid to late 2009.

 160k up till now, and it will sell at least 500k overall. Not great, but not a complete flop.

@ SSJ, it has certainly been released in the UK, so I would expect Europe to have it to

First off, I don't know what he's talking about with pc/ps3 doing crappy but 360 doing well (?), but what is your basis for claiming gears 2 would do better on ps3/pc and as compared to what, 360/pc? (if you are comparing those two...read on...)

Sounds ridiculous to me...ps3s install base is no where near xbox's install base (NA particularly). PS3's online network, at this point in time, cannot compare to xboxs (and i doubt it will even be on par with it before the end of the year) which was a major selling point for the original gears of war. And, gears already has an installled based with its 360 users. Tell me why install base on ps3 would buy more gears 2 than the install base of 360.

By your logic, there is no such thing as a sleeper hit (which everyone knows they indeed exist) and by that same "flawless" logic every big budget title is a winner (which everyoneknows is indeed not true).

EDIT: You should also note that you're comparing the next install of a critically acclaimed and highly established franchise to a single game....  

@twesterm: Actually considering they have an unreal engine sitting there (so they don't need to develop that) as well as the game mechanics of Gears of War pretty much "complete" in the first game (thus not needing to run as many trials on the combat/shooter system) development time should take less then the original. I do agree that a 2 year development cycle is a little short, but saying FFXIII who have a new engine built from the ground up as well as development for a new platform, will come first, is a bit of a stretch. You say that Epic is meticulous in their development, I'm sure the same can be said of Square Enix when it comes to the FF titles in the main series (I to X and then XII). Also, just because they show trailers, doesn't mean that game is definitely ahead in development compared to a game that doesn't show much (or at all), I mean look at the more recent extreme cases Duke Nukem and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Is it impossible that they have been doing some work on it before now, with a smaller group of people just getting the story, artwork all that stuff in place before full work on it starts. I don't know how much that cuts down the time to make it, but I'm sure that might let them get it out this year, considering they would have done all of that almost immediately after the release.

Anyway, how come Insomniac makes a game a year?

Wow, I didn't say anything close to that. Really, not sure what the hell you were reading. My point was that you can't compare the success of a game like Gears of War 2 with Unreal Tournament III, because there is not nearly as much interest in Unreal Tournament as there is with GoW.

Also, I never said anything about it doing better than 360, I said a game like Gears of War 2 on PS3 would do MUCH better than Unreal Tournament III on the PS3.