The release of Gears of War 3 could be coined "Submergence Day", since so many gamers are going to disappear into their gaming holes and not come out until they finish it. I admit, that's what I did.

I'd love to be able to claim it was strictly to meet release deadline, but the truth is that I played for 11 hours straight on my second day with it and, frankly, could have kept going if my Xbox hadn't started crashing from overheating. As I'm typing this, my hands are still shaking from adrenaline. And there were times that I could actually hear my heart pounding during a Team Deathmatch multiplayer session.

Maybe I need to get out more. But maybe this rush is really what Gears of War 3 is all about. Yes, it wraps up the story. No, it's not a perfect game. But anything that delivers that sort of excitement without the unpleasant twitchiness of a survival horror title is something I can enthusiastically recommend.

As it tells the story of the events 18 months after the end of Gears 2, Gears the Third is facing a challenge almost as daunting as defeating the locusts: it has to crush sales records AND win a shit-ton of awards to be meet head office expectations. There were, obviously, many difficult choices regarding what the Epic development team really wanted to do versus the amount of fan service required in a core title. Add to that the limits on the amount of data the Xbox 360 discs allow, how long they could really take to get the game out, and... I'm going to stop going down this line of thought, because I'm starting to pity the studio.

Adding to the performance anxiety is a hype machine bigger than a Brumak. This is when I usually say that no game could live up to that hype, but... in this case, it actually might have by the skin of its teeth. Yes, Bitchy McCrankypants von Doesn't Like Anything Popular actually just wrote that. What can I say?

Well, I'll say this: the trick to really enjoying Gears of War 3 is to set your expectations high, but to let the game tell its story, not the one you've made up yourself while waiting to find out what the cliffhanger transmission at the end of the second game was all about. Believe the hype, but don't get hypnotized by it.

As if to show up previous trilogy-cappers that rested on their laurels and played it safe, Epic Games has thrown so many new features at the wall that the wall cried and told them they were assholes. Mech suits, melee weapons, squad commands, an arcade mode, online four-player campaign co-op, a game-wide level system, even silly items like fire extinguishers and baseball caps... all of it means that you can play through campaign multiple times and never have quite the same experience twice, especially on hardcore difficulty. Then there's the return of Horde, and the insane fun of Beast multiplayer mode. More on that later.

With so much to do, Gears 3 is not a game intended to be rushed. You can complete a playthrough in a weekend if you do nothing else, but you'll need two passes to properly enjoy the story, its moments of foreshadowing, subtle symbolism, and more than a few red herrings. Take your time and enjoy the easter eggs, collectibles, and other little details that really do add a cool factor. My personal favorite time waster is the swing set on the playground in Hanover. And just in case you missed that the Gears boys aren't cardboard videogame thugs, you can find a copy of Dom's psychiatric report early in the game.

It's refreshing to see tough guys being intensely affected by the horrible circumstances they've had to endure, without them emoing all over the place. As well as Dom's grief, Marcus is having nightmares about his father. Even Cole has a brief scene that cuts through his joyous bravado; even he isn't immune to regret. Baird's tells are more subtly presented, but they're there too.

Beyond the four main characters, thanks to the tie-in comics, novels, and the push to sell collectible action figures, Gears 3 features a vastly expanded cast. It may be no surprise that the characters new to the games don't come anywhere near the complexity or depth of the returning ones. The most interesting new face is Aaron Griffin, voiced by Ice-T. He's the only Gears hero that is brand new in the world, and he has all the snap and swagger that I hoped for. And it was nice to see a black guy in a position of authority among the Stranded, since COG command is pretty white.