So one of my buddies plays Gears 3, a lot, and after playing through the campaign around Christmas I've been trying to get into multiplayer and get good. The problem? Everyone else is way better than me, almost all of the time. I played the casual game mode and did well until it kicked me out, and was in for a rude awakening win versus mode. I'm trying to get better, but I just feel like the gap between everyone else and me is just too large and I'm not improving. I consider myself pretty good at games like Halo and Battlefield, but the learning curve for Gears is just crazy. What do?

If you value the game enough, keep going at it and you'll get good eventually, even if it's through getting your ass kicked repeatedly, or you can just decide it's not worth it and walk away from the multiplayer. It's the old problem of multiplayer games, if they're not popular enough then you start to see the less skilled players drop off, leaving only the more dedicated and more skilled players there, and after that everyone else is more or less screwed. Because of the skilled players having complete control over the game, there's never going to be a new generation of less skilled players to replace those that left, because for anyone new the whole experience seems completely impenetrable.

Just mimic what the other dudes do and use the shotgun, switch to the other button layout to make wall-bouncing easier, and learn how to instagib without aiming. I went in pretty cold to the series (I've only played it when hanging out with friends when the first two games came out, didn't get a console until like 09) when the beta came out and it didn't take long to adjust to the game. Just stick with it, maybe play horde mode and practice those multiplayer fundamentals against AI. Of course, I played it in closed beta and the game could be entirely different with new strategies or glitches being abused now, so I could be totally wrong.