RE: Gears 4 campaign
https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/gears-of-war-4/critic-reviews
I think people forget that Gears of War 4 had an 84% metacritic score, with only a handful of outlier reviews dragging it down.
I mean, I didn't forget it reviewed well. But man I was so completely unentertained that I still haven't even finished it. I genuinely just couldn't bring myself to keep playing. Got probably 3/5 I think. I was just. so. bored. Never had that experience with 1, 2, 3, or heck even Judgement. Idk why, but the completely plastic, xbox-commercial-with-super-identifiable-with-mid-twenties-young-adults type characters did not help at all. Earlier gears games were dumb, b movie, over the top silly, awesome action that took itself seriously. They knew what they were and they were proud of it. Gears 4 feels embarrassed to be gears, never, ever setting tonal consistency, one moment serious, the next moment just literal clever funny Twitter exchanges. Not to mention abysmal pacing, with so much shit taking WAY. TOO. LONG. to happen and other good moments being super short. It has so much bloat to it. It takes so long for anything in the story to happen EVER. Rarely can I even think of encounters. I can literally remember like, four out of what I played. Gears 1, which I'm not even the hugest fan of cuz I think it's wonky and hasn't aged well, as a bunch of different encounters I could name right off. Same with Gears 2 and 3 which are both excellently paced in terms of action and story.
Unless you just completely, utterly, do not care about story in these games, and just completely ignore it, and some how get through all the fucking "Deebee" (see man this bullshit; fucking "deebees" man) robot sections which suck ass because they are just not fun to fight, then yeah unless you can ignore like, all of that, then genuinely I can't tell how someone would enthusiastically like Gears 4.
I'm not even alone. I see "bland" thrown around when discussed Gears 4 and it's the perfect word to describe it. It's so sterile. I can't understand why someone would genuinely like the game.
If you didnt like the Gears 4 campaign I can only assume you dont like Gears campaigns in general
See above. I fucking LOVED gears 2 and 3. Hell I didn't mind judgement. 3's DLC campaign was even good. Time hasn't been kind to 1 imo, but it's still an enjoyable experience, some wonky checkpoints aside.