The Cliffster is making Gears of War 2, and the dude's totally hoping he can improve. Make a better game, you know. And in doing so, The 'ster has things he's looking at, things he wants to avoid. And one of those things is Metal Gear Solid. Says The Cliffster:
We wanted a blockbuster pace [in Gears of War 1], and in doing so, we lost the story a bit. So that's one of the lessons we learned. This time round there's more repetition. Games aren't movies and aren't consumed in a single sitting. So secondary characters will remind you about stuff, which is re-established in plot cues. Metal Gear Solid is our example of the game we're not doing. Passive entertainment is on its way out — you need to hook up with this web 2.0 stuff.
The ironic thing? Kojima Productions was influenced by Gears of War's controls for MGS4.
Gears of War 2 Multiplayer Hands-On [IGN via ripten]