This is a beautiful looking game that plays great. The combat is honed to the Gears flavor of perfection. The scenes are bright and crisp and engaging in a way that exceed the previous two games by far. Production values all around are excellent.
And I really kind of hated it. I found the storytelling - that is, the admixture of what you do in the game and what happens in the plot - to be really off. If you summarize the plot, it's fine. Not great, but fine. But in the action, it is much more often than not contrived and false-feeling, as well as aimless. Some of the big, emotional moments are just silly. Some of the important plot developments remained inscrutable to me until I looked them up online. Mostly though, I just felt like I could see the hands of the designers reaching in again and again to make "gamey" storytelling choices, often when a just ever so slightly subtle approach would've served the same purpose.
My other complaint is personal, and I don't think others have it, but 3 out of 4 times, I couldn't join a Horde game online. I'd wait for ten minutes or more and matchmaking would try and try. I love this mode, and when I did get to play it, it was always a great time. I'm sure if any of my friends had it, I could play with them in a private match, but they don't. Maybe there's some weird setting in my router, I dunno. As is most of the time when I sit down to play it the way I want to, it won't let me. So that sucks for me.