Thanks to kamy100 for recommending Shopto.net - my copy arrived this morning!
Well I was prepared to be disappointed after reading what you guys have said, but I'm really not! I think it's excellent! Yeah, it's got aliens, yeah, it's not exactly "innovative"; but the things it does, it does really well. The "ducking" part is actually really, really well implemented. You don't have to remember a load of button-presses; it does what it says. And if you pull away from the wall when you're in a menu, you move away from the wall rather than finding yourself stuck in a menu when you need to move.
It adds a new dimension to the game that other shooters don't have, or at least don't do anywhere
near as well. And in this game, you
need those hiding places, so if it was fiddly to control, you'd be shot to ribbons in seconds. But it's implemented perfectly, as is every other gameplay aspect.
The graphics are excellent, the game dynamics are superb; the gameplay beats Halo into a cocked hat
and pisses on it from a great height, in my humble opinion! It's very, very simple to get into (I hate having to remember 32 button combinations), but it's very hard to win at the same time. You really, actually DO have to strategise to win, rather than just run around and shoot (saying that, it looks like a lot of people do).
It might be short, though, and I suppose if you play it online non-stop then it's going to get repetitive. As shooters go though, I'm really, really impressed. I was playing Battlefield 2142 regularly for the last few weeks, and honestly, I think it'll be pushed to one side for a while now (although maybe the BF2142 online campaign will be less repetitive than GOW's - I haven't got stuck into it yet).
Very pleased! Definitely the best 360 game I've played so far, although with it not being a sports title I'll probably not play it as often as e.g. FIFA 07 and Tiger Woods 07. The game is nothing new, and who knows it may get boring in a short period of time, but it does everything it has flawlessly and does everything how every other shooter should do it, from what I can see.