Let me first say that I recently traded in my copy of Gears of War at a local Gamestop for a store credit of $30. I miss the game very much. I did not want to trade it in but I just had to because I wanted to buy a new game and didn't feel like paying full price for it. My consolation now is that I still have Rainbow Six Vegas. I would've probably traded that in instead of GoW but it wasn't worth as much. It's alright. I vow to one day re-purchase Gears of War when I have the money for it. Until then, I will need to come up with some valid reasons why Rainbow Six Vegas is worth keeping more than Gears of War.

REPLAYABILITY

The terms "replay value" and "multiplayer" are inseparable when it comes to videogames. Whenever a reviewer brings up the issue of any game's longevity, you can be sure that you will find the word "multiplayer" in his very next sentence. I am completely against the notion that "multiplayer" is what gives a game longevity. In fact, I consider the multiplayer portion of any videogame to be a totally separate game from the single player or story mode of the game. Replayability should strictly be based on the single player experience, which is what I appreciate the most out of sports games like NBA 2K7 or Madden. You can create different matchups and get different results each time. While shooters are of a different breed, the single player should still have some sort of replay value. Rainbow Six Vegas accomplishes this with its Terrorist Hunt mode, where you can play in any of the maps based on the story mode and hunt down terrorists that are randomly spawned in various places of the map. You'll soon see a pattern of where the terrorists will be appearing from, but there is always the sense of unpredictability, depending on how you navigate the map. This is an element that is missing from Gears of War. Gears offers some of the most intense firefights ever seen in a videogame and a player should be able to get his fix every once in a while without having to go through the same scripted sequences in the story mode that will always end the same way. It would've been awfully nice to be able to run around the multiplayer maps against bots, but you would have to rely on Xbox Live for replay value. Also, the story mode in Gears of War is short and the developer's aim was to vary up the chapters to avoid becoming too repetitive. While that is good for a couple of walkthroughs, most players will form strong opinions on which chapters of the story they enjoyed and hated. There's not enough missions of the same type and feel to choose from, meaning that if you particularly enjoyed one firefight scenario, you would have to play that exact same level over and over again. Gears of War is like a sampler plate that has a little bit of everything that will definitely satisfy your hunger but will have you wishing you had a lot more of one thing and less of the rest. Rainbow Six Vegas, on the other hand, uses a more traditional approach in its campaign, which pretty much is to create similar situations dressed up in different sets. Some might cry "repetitive" but will overlook the fact that the firefights in Rainbow Six Vegas are so dynamic that too much of the same thing is not such a bad thing after all. Rainbow Six even throws a couple of rescue and escort missions into the mix to change things up, but the meat of the campaign consists of the elements that players enjoy, namely the firefights against intelligent bots.

OUT-OF-GAME RESOURCES

If you're like me, I really enjoy extending my game immersion outside of the game itself. I do this by watching movies that are either directly based on the game, or have many similar qualities as the game. It's easy to find outside material with the Rainbow Six vibe as there are dozens of movies that revolve around special ops engaging in CQB, including Tom Clancy movies that might not be about Rainbow Six per se, but takes place in the same universe as Rainbow Six (for instance, Clear and Present Danger has two characters from the Rainbow Six games, Chavez and John Clark). Gears of War has no other resources outside of itself. The closest thing I can come up with is Pitch Black, but only for one small aspect of Gears of War (the Kryll).