After playing a ton of UE, the improvements of Gears 2 and especially 3 have become clear. It just seems Epic got better at making Gears as they went along, which makes sense. Overall mechanics/barrel shooting are obvious ones, everything is much smoother but also things like map design and power weapons. I think nostalgia had people believing Gears 1 was just a gnasher/lancer game. The purest of Gears. But it's really not when there's about a hundred power weapons on the map. Rooftops is an extreme example where there's two snipers, two hammer of dawns, two grenades, and a torque bow. Even Bullet Marsh has grenades, two snipers, a torque bow, and a boom. Escalation has 3 grenades and two snipers, all for one side. That's a lot of firepower sitting around and headshots are pretty damn easy in this one. Now look at Gears 3. You have Checkout with one set of frags and one digger/sniper spawn or Thrashball with Torque and Frags. Now the fights are funneled towards those and in some cases they won't even be picked up in Execution or Warzone because everyone will be dead. In kill-based modes, the power weapons are the objectives you fight for and should be a rare commodity, not handed out like candy. I dunno, just some thoughts I had about how the game has evolved for the better.
Xbox One 
