It was well worth the wait.
I spent 16 hours playing the campaign with Michael on Friday, and my god, I am totally in love with this game (which I knew I would be). But it goes above and beyond my expectations.
The graphics are amazing and there were quite a few times when we just stood there looking at the environments and random bits of scenary.
The game play is a whole lot smoother than the first one, but I'm glad that they kept the same control system as I really got on with it in GoW.
The new enemies are brilliant, and sometime annoying. Tickers are the new Lambent Wretches, but more fun as you can use them to your advantage if you can melee them right.
The classic weapons are still in there, even though I am quite disappointed that the shotgun seems to have been dumbed down slightly. But we now have the "big guns" to play with, Mulchers and Mortars.
And then we have the characters. We get introduced to new guys, who are brilliant and annoying at the same time. But we still have the original Delta Squad and their banter. It started in GoW with some amazing one liners......"like two assholes on their first date". But this time, the Epic team have thrown in some great script and my favourite line so far....( Possible Spoiler ) But still the best character has to be Augustus "Cole Train" Cole. He rejoins Delta Squad with a great cut scene and it made me realise how great he is. Then later on in the game, there are a couple of times in the palace when I get reminded how great this guy is.
Another great feature is the acheivement tracker. Trying to keep track of how many kills you have with a certain weapon, has now been made a lot easier with a "pop up window". I'd love to see this in other games.
There is one thing that I'm not too happy with and that's the ending. Well, more specifically, the last boss. It just seems way too easy to defeat, unlike General Raam in GoW, which took some kind of skill.
And just a word of warning, if you play co-op campaign online, you have to both have headsets. There are a lot of times when communication is essential and it would make it extremely difficult if you can't talk to the other person.  Luckily, me and Michael worked well together, even though there were a couple of times when we ended up shouting at each other, but hey, all's fair in love and Gears of War!!!
And as with a lot of games (and movies), sitting through 'til the end of the credits is a must as it opens up the possibility of another game in the future. Not going to say what, but I'm sure that there are clips on YouTube somewhere.
I have yet to take it online and play the multiplayer maps. We had a quick blast at Horde on some of the re-done Flashback Maps, but I amm looking forward to getting to know the new maps and play some Annex, which I am so glad that they kept in there. 

I'm off now to go and work towards getting 100,000 kills. Seems impossible, but they thought that with GoW and 10,000 kills. It'll keep me busy for a while at least.

Toodles
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