ears of War released to critical and commercial success a year ago on the Xbox 360, and Microsoft has now seen fit to release it to the company’s redheaded stepchild of a platform. Unlike Halo 2, Gears will actually run under Windows XP, which is a step up, but it’s nonetheless clear that the game was developed with consoles in mind. As we’ve seen from many previous titles making the transition between console and PC, Gears plays noticeably better with the control scheme it was originally designed for. At least you have the option of using a gamepad here.

With the exception of two bonus hours of content preceding the final chapter, Gears on PC is exactly the same as its 360 predecessor – except with a lower framerate and generally worse visuals unless you have a crazy-powerful DirectX 10 rig at your disposal. And while it’s not like the new chapter is bad or boring to play through, it is the very definition of “more of the same.”

Pounding through Gears’ campaign again is entertaining, but Rainbow Six Vegas’ cover system makes a mockery of the once-innovative implementation in Gears. The issues surrounding sticking to cover that you didn’t intend to and the other idiosyncrasies of Gears’ system are exacerbated with mouse/keyboard control, and the slow methodical approach that the game promotes is vastly less smooth in the absence of an analog stick for movement. Again, plugging in a 360 pad fixes these issues, but it sure would have been nice to see some of them ironed out over the last year.

Unless you feel that the (somewhat disappointing) fight against the Brumak or a minor splash of new single-player content is worth $50, the only gamers that should be thinking about purchasing this are 360-impaired PC owners that never got into the fun last year – especially considering the multitude of superior multiplayer options in the PC action sector.