Ok so first let me preface what I'm about to say with this:
I am not talking about the psychological motivations.  We could debate that until blue in the face- though I'm willing to bet the simplest answer (they're not that bright) is the easiest answer.
 
I'm asking of the people who post threads that get locked (excepting delete/combine requests- that makes sense), what are the user statistics?  What's the average user post count before a locked thread?  What's the average user subscription age (I mean how long have they been a user) at time of first locked thread?  Of users who get threads locked, what's the average locked thread count for that user (for users with multiple locks counting them as one user with x amount of locks)?
 
There's are psuedo-serious questions.  I'm posting this as a blog because this is what goes through my mind.  I still like to go through and read locked threads.  And while I would expect half of them to be "hi I'm new," way more are you tube spam or other buffoonery.  So today reading them all I began to wonder the statistical picture of the "future locked thread poster", and how they fit with my mental preconception.  Anyways- just some interesting food for thought.
 
On another topic- on Delete/Combine requests- I'm fairly impressed people notice the things they do, but I do wonder what the mental makeup of a wiki-er is?  I like the design and function of wiki's, but for me the editing isn't my bag (tbh I tend to fall to sandbox issues, being able to edit a wiki means I'll eventually commit vandalism) so I stay away from that, but reading through the stuff that's out there is cool and incredibly valuable (for me at least).
 
Ok so weird off-topic thought bubbling done for the day.

So will 2011 be a personal Renaissance year?  It might just be.  Right now I'm looking at four main first-week purchases this year:
Bulletstorm (check)
Rage
Duke Nukem Forever
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
 
Secondarily, I will probably pick up ME3, but other games I'm somewhat interested in (Skyrim and Da2) will probably wait until 2012.  So for starters, I'm pretty much always looking for that game that is just long enough that there's an actual campaign, but also short enough I can play over and over.  Something with general gameplay appeal.  Last year I was hoping WET would be my game.  It, alas, was not.  I thoroughly enjoyed the one complete play through I made but on the second attempt, all the little things that made the gameplay worse really got to me and I put it away.  Bulletstorm looks like it will be that game for me.  Something I genuinely enjoy and something which is short enough I can play again and again.  
 
Now on to the Renaissance year topic.  Deus Ex was a watershed game for me.  Opened my mind up to games that are (what I consider) truly 'open.'  Going back to the liberty island level, I can think of at least three different ways to approach the level:
1) Rush to Geunter (front door, guns blazing), set him free and let him kill everyone
2) Sneak in the back, take down a few guards, let Geunter free
3) Kill everyone, meet Geunter, tell him I killed everyone and he can go suck an egg.
 
And there's more than that, I know.  Those are just off the top of my head.  Not to say that this new game will respect that asthetic- but I'm hopeful.  At the very least, Deus Ex (the first) was the single reason I spent alot of high school nights and college nights up late reading about the real world counterparts to the story (and mythological counterparts).  This, I'm hoping is what really carries over, even at the expense of previous gameplay loves of mine.  
 
Bulletstorm, Rage and DNF are the pulp I've been craving. 
Military themed games I own:
BF BC 1 & 2
CoD Modern Warfare 2
Halo 3
 
Let's say that I enjoy the battlefield stuff, though in general I'm moved on from shooters on the PC.  Consider that a weakness.  I do.  So I could see myself buying another battlefield game on the 360, but probably won't purchase BF3 on the PC.  I sincerely doubt I will be buying anymore CoD or Halo games.  Honestly, other than DICE games, I'm pretty much ready to say I won't be purchasing military themed (read: trying to be realistic) shooters for the forseeable future.  That includes Gears, btw.
 
But I love shooters- which means I need something to feed my appetite.  So that brings me to the 'throwback' games coming out this year I listed.  So far Bulletstorm has been what I would consider a success, and sequel wise, let's just say they ought release a sequel because I'm buying.  I'll probably buy DNF and Rage almost site unseen because they have what I want.  Gore, unrealisticness, and immaturity.  Which I feel needs to come to shooters, they've been so serious.  Seriously, I think this year these games will do to the shooter genre what Ledger did for the Joker.  Bringing a smile to my face with a sharp pointy (or dull and rusty as it may have been) knife.
 
Huzzah!

Ok so to start a couple notes:
 
1) I was going to like this game.  Apart from controls just not working, Deadly Premonition level production issues, or an unplayable game, I was going to like this game.  And I do.  So that will color everything I say and have said about Bulletstorm.
2) I played five hours of the campaign last night.  I just met the general dude.  Don't know what percentage I'm done, don't know my pacing.  Could be half way in or 90%.  I'll probably find out tonight. 
3) I'll try to stay away from major spoilers, but in the context of Bulletstorm, I'm not sure there are major spoilers.  So watch out.
 
 
Ok, on to my impressions.  This game is meant for me.  When I play shooters these days, I get bored quickly and usually wish we could go back to what I liked about Unreal Tournament (My crazy shooter game of choice) or Soldier of Fortune (My game with a campaign guilty pleasure).  Compared to the demo, even, this game feels a little faster/smoother.  That's nice, makes this game less 'gears-y' and more it's own game (an admittedly old-school game).
 
Onto gameplay:
 
So as Jeff said, this game has some ammo conservation built into it that noone was expecting.  I haven't run in to this per-se, but there is a whole strategy to the way you spend skill points on upgrades.  The basic function here is that as you get skill points (which you get more for if you're creative with shooting/killing), you can use them at the dropships to buy more ammo, buy charge shots, or upgrade either.  As you come across new weapons you also have to spend an initial investment to unlock that new weapon in the dropshop interface.  Dudes drop ammo, so you don't always have to buy ammo, and most dudes use the assault rifle, so it's not too hard to work out which Gun you probably don't need to buy ammo for (but upgrading the ammo capacity helps because you have more reserves then).  
 
The game rewards you not getting bored and just plowing through dudes.  So, if I were to just use my rifle and shoot dudes, relying on careful aiming for headshots or just killing them, I wouldn't get alot of points, but I would make it through the game.  It rewards you for taking your time and pacing your kills.  Doing that, you get more time to work out environmental kills and use different weapons, getting more points in the process.  Also, there's a strategy to your weapon loadouts.  There are portions, for example, where a sniper rifle is almost required.  They give you a gun then.  You can switch you 2 secondary weapons with any guns you've unlocked at the dropshops, so depending on where you are in the unlocks and how you play, it makes sense to use specific loadouts.  For example, since I played the demo so much, the flail gun and the pistol are my best weapons for skill shots, so I use them alot (racking up skill points along the way, unlocking greater ammo storage for these guns and upgrading the guns i'm not using)
 
Ok so that's all to say there's more to the game than appears at first sight.  One could say the game is a crazy over-the-top shooter that gets pretty repetitive.  On the other hand, what I have observed is that you can certainly play the game this way, but you are rewarded more for 'strategizing' how you play the game.  Not only that, but the skillshot names are cool and seeing you screen fill up with skillshots is rewarding by itself.  That takes me to another point, the UI in this game is really good.  Not too busy, not too minimal, sort-of where I would want it to be.  
 
 
Level Design and Set Peices:
This game is crazy.  The world you get placed in is huge, and it seems like when you're not actively killing dudes, they're trying to show off what they've done with this world they've created.  That's cool and it looks amazing.  There are some amazing in-world events as a result of the story part of the game, and some crazy monsters/bosses you face.  This over-the-top part for me is really really satisfying.  As most of you have seen, the robot dinosaur part is super cool.  It was also challenging as the robot controls were flawed somewhat in the way you would expect them to be (which is the robot dinosaur shoots from it's head, so it's not so much like a big tank.
 
The language/voice acting:
This is what will probably be the most polarizing part.  I like that this game takes itself so un-seriously that the writing feels like it was done by a 13 year old or auto-generated.  The dialog (and story) is absolutely balls-to-the-wall batshit crazy.  And it's better for that.  I think some people look at this like the weakest point, but to do that I'd have to think this game was intended to be serious (a'la Cod, Halo, Gears, etc).  But it's not.  So I'm ok with that.
 
 
Actual Weakness:
The engine.  I like Unreal.  So I like this game, and the style.  It's not too gears-y, which is good because I don't really care for the gears unreal look.  However, Unreal has issues.  Texture pop-in comes up here and there (actually only once in the 5 hours I played and for a cutseen and 5 minutes of game play after that).  What happened was grey's character never loaded right and some of the in-world objects didn't load right either.  The game righted itself very quickly and I got over it.  But nobody likes that, and i hope if that one area is busted they fix it and if it was a random glitch it doesn't happen again.  Part of what I like about the unreal engine is the sizing of everything is more video-gamey and feels a little bit bigger.  People look like they're 7 feet tall, versus the normal height in CoD games and the five feet tall they feel like in Battlefield games.  I think this is a bit of a visual preference that people either will or won't like.  I do, but I can certainly see how it would turn people off.
 
 
Wrap-up:
In any case, this game will most likely be pretty polarizing.  I think the game itself is solid, and reviews and gamers in general will/should see that.  The tone of the game may come under fire (already has) as will the length and extra features.  I think this game is good enough that it coupled with DNF later this year can change the course (which I don't like) of like every AAA shooter to come out for a while now.  However, even if it's not a) I like this game, and b) I think it will end up like Red Dead Revolver.  The forgotten spiritual prequel to a game which later was absolutely amazing, and re-introduced a whole new genre to gamers, the western.  So in either case, this game is refreshingly old-school, and hopefully more new games will be old-school (and good) too.

So if I were in charge of this marketing campaign/reveal/whateveryoucallit, here's what this Bioware Announcement would be:
 
A post ME2 ending DLC for ME2.  Just that.  It wouldn't be like the Shadow Broker where you can start it whenever.  You'd have to finish the game first, and then this would continue the main story.  
 
That's what I would be announcing.  I don't think it's time for ME3 yet, tbh, and I think that theres more to develop in the story before the third chapter begins.  I would even go so far as to suggest following the Awakening convention (ie selling it as a disc/download based add-on).  From what one can see in the trailer/screenshot (there's not much), the story could be something involving your party having to land on a remote world to defend against an impending Reaper landing.  
 
To me that makes the most sense, because from what I could see of the end of ME2, it's going to take some time for the Reapers to get to the galaxy.  This opens a window for more 'bridging' DLC or an expansion, that tells the story of the first arrival.  That would set up the third chapter to be an all-out war with the Reapers, instead of this whole 'recruit/wait' story thus far.

So starting with the second to last E3 and leading up to now I have been increasingly frustrated with 'exclusive' promotions.  
 
 
I understand that there are developers and business deals to think about which results in some games being released only on one console or before/after it's release on the other console (The timed exclusive).  Thing is I don't get angry because I can't play Some of the Metal Gear games or God of War 3 or Killzone games.  I don't get all puffy when Halo or Fable comes out just for the Xbox.  Fact is, I own a Blu-Ray player and bought the Xbox at the time because the price was right.  THe PS3 price was not.  I have enjoyed some things that I guess are 'exclusive' or 'better' on the 360, and I suppose have probably enjoyed some things that were 'worse' on the 360.  
 
What really gets me is that "Fanboys" claim that these games coming out for one console or the other or mixed support levels for games between consoles have to do with anything other than developer preference and/or business deals.  In neither case do these have anything to do with console quantity.  Well, I suppose on some tertiary level they do, but I imagine it stays at that level. 
 
 Yeah so I'm a bit of a cynic.  But I've enjoyed game products.  Also I know PR wording of exclusives won't go away.  I just feel if the games community got together (sort-of Kum-ba-ya) and realized we all like games and aren't necessarily competing.  AND most importantly gave less fuel to the PR wording and more fuel to products being good, it might go away.  I feel gamers and journalists (and the intermixing) both are to blame.  
 
My proposal is we not give weight to PR usage of exclusives.  Not even when games are really exclusive.  Sure, not all of us enjoy owning all consoles, so sometimes a new game won't peak our interest because we can't play it.  But if we do away with some of the Halo/Killzone arguments and just focus on playing good games (and promoting/buying them) maybe the annoying exclusive talk would go away.
 
 
That is all.