So I tried about a half hour worth of Gears 4 Horde mode this morning. I originally just wanted to benchmark the game (and my card did quite well) but I saw I had some time and nothing better to do so at 5:30 am I jumped into a game. Had no problem finding a game and I was matched with One and PC players, all of who were much higher rank than me. I wish I could have played until the match ended but I had to leave early, mainly because I didn't think work would accept my answer of "I was fighting off the Hordes" as an excuse for my tardiness, nor would my wife accept that as the answer to why the kids' breakfasts weren't made and lunches weren't packed (I'm a busy beaver in the morning.)
I'm not going to get into all the specifics of the Horde mode, but one major difference is that unlike that of Gears 2, you actually have to protect a stationary "Payload" that acts as a cache and equipment center. When you kill guys they drop "credits" that then need to be deposited to help fund all the new equipment, like spikes, guns, decoys, etc. This means that survival is not the main goal like it's been in the past. When you die, your COG tags can be picked up by teammates and you can be revived at the base.
As far as the action goes, it's still fun us against the world gameplay, and doing it at 60 FPS I think really is going to stop me from going back to Gears 2 with it's sub-30 frame rate when things got hectic. I wasn't tracking the FPS but I didn't notice any slowdown while playing. I'm also not sure how the points you earn from playing will affect things. One of the complaints I've read is that you need a LOT of grinding to unlock good stuff, but quite frankly unlike Overwatch I don't feel compelled to go above and beyond to try and get better skins. I don't care if my Marcus Fenix character just runs around in a shirt and jeans. It actually helps IMO because it means I stand out more to my teammates and I don't just look like another generic COG fighter (which sometimes blend in with the enemies.)
Overall I did have fun playing and I like to think that once I learn the classes I think it'll improve even more. It'll be nice to have another game that
king3pj and I can play, and hopefully some of my Xbox One friends will pick this up and we can do some major Horde games like I've always wanted to do since Gears 2. My dream may FINALLY become a reality!
I'm also psyched to play through the campaign since I've seen how well my machine runs the game, although sadly I can't do it tonight because I will be attending an exclusive opening night showing of a limited theatrical release starring one of the most iconic movie characters of all time.
Oh, and it looks like Overwatch will be getting some attention since apparently the Halloween Games start tonight.