I'll definitely admit Halo 1's campaign got repetitive and was even a bit boring in places. However, Bungie made up for that with a fantastic world with a deep, deep background, and improved upon the gameplay greatly in Halo 2. It has one of the best (and I don't know how it could be considered unbalanced, as it seemed pretty damn fair in the several hundred hours of playtime I put into Xbox Live--nearly every weapon combinatinon can be beaten by another if you're skilled enough.) multiplayer systems in any game I've played. I think Halo 2 is the most fun, perfect shooter I've ever played, and I can't wait for Halo 3. Halo's multiplayer is far better than Gears', as well, but the latter is still good fun.

Gears of War is a fantastic game, as well. However, it really doesn't require any more strategy than Halo did if you were playing on the higher difficulties. Epic did a fantastic job, overall, with the cover system, and it's such a different type of game it's almost unfair to compare the two. The pop out of cover and shoot system works really well, but in the end it's not some huge, eye-opening advancement that will change the way shooters work. You have to take cover in pretty much any shooter if you want to survive. Epic just made it a more important aspect of the gameplay. And made it cool.