I think this new way of getting people interested to play your beta and at the same time invested in your upcoming game is absolutely brilliant. I own both gears 1 and 2 and I might have like 10 hours total invested into the Multi-Player of it. First of I kinda suck at twitch gaming (except Starcraft 2, I am actually getting better at it) and the community skills grow like mad in these types of games. The hurdle to overcome is just huge as you as a noob will be taken out again and again before you can get off a shot. The uphill climb is very steep. 

I have now invested loads of time into the beta and unlocked the Thrashball Cole costume for the retail version. I am now contemplating buying the game at release to get a little bit of a head-start as well in the Multi-player. I even went back to Gears 2 multi-player when I saw that you could unlock a chrome skin, but I just don't have the time. I do hope I have the time to unlock it and still have a chance to unlock the gold retro lancer in retail. I even curbed my WoW time to be able to get this and patch 4.1 just came out! SC2 is also low-key now, but my zerg-timings are getting better. 

I do hope I have the time to get those 20 kills a night as we are coming up to a very busy period at work.  But I can hope, can I?

Also this game sounds amazing on my new surround set. I worked to get finally own a quality home theater set-up and it makes me think to back in the day when i was still studying and had to rent a N64 to play Zelda in my small-ass TV. 

To all you younguns, stick with it. It's really rewarding when you can finally play these games the way they were meant to be played on a system, TV and home theater setup you yourself worked hard to get.