Whoo! It is so polished and awesome! I know most of you (if not all of you) hate this game (but I forgive you), but it's so damn hardcore compared to all those other shooters. Ugh, played it for hours on end last night. I def won't be playing SSFIV as much while this beta period is on...which is bad cause I need to be practicing for EVO lol
Graphics: With the updates to the Unreal Engine (in my opinion gives the best graphics for games), this game is absolutely beautiful. The lighhting and the shadows are spot on, the blood and gore are believeable, the environment of the maps are gorgeous and breath taking, and the characters are even more so badass looking (omg Dom <3)
Gameplay: Much smoother than Gears 2 by far. Epic moved toward dedicated servers (yay true netcode) instead of host internet (whatever that is called). At the end of Gears 2 life, they were implementing the dedicated servers so there were a lot of changes going on (sort of like it was a beta on its own). It plays fluidly and there was absolutely no lag.
Weapons: I'll start with the old ones first. The Lancer is still as good as before. There is no kick, good accuracy, but a little slow on the chainsaw start (like usual). The Hammerburst no longer has the kick to it and it now has the iron sight (excellent gun for long range). The Gnasher shotgun is still as powerful and is the weapon of choice for most of the matches (mainly because Gears is an in your face game and not a stupid camping game like COD). The special weapons (like the Longshot and Torque Bow are the same and feel amazing when you pop off someone's head or blow them up with the Torque). The smoke grenade can now stun again and the explosion feels so lifelike. The new weapons are pretty interesting. The first one is the Retro Lancer. It is vastly different from the normal Lancer. There is a huge kick to it when you shoot. And unlike the chainsaw, it has this huge sword in the front that you can charge into someone and impale them...sweet!!! Then there is the Sawed Off which is INSANELY powerful (but only at close range). The reload on it is horribly slow so you have to get that kill on that first shot. As for a special weapon, the new Digger acts like a torpedo and causes a huge explosion when it reaches the target...unfortunately it only goes in a straight line and you can't control it. The new incendiary grenades are fun...burn baby burn!
I will be editing this throughout the day...damn work