Gearheads of War

"...if you're holding a sniper rifle, hitting B next to a downed enemy will cause your character to toss it into the air, catching it by the barrel, then shatter his head into a thousand pieces with a Happy Gilmore golf drive"

"...Shoot the meatflag enough times while the opposition is draggin him homeward will set him loose, often causing him to go berserk [sic] against his captors to hilarious effect.  The meatflag even has his own place on the intermission leaderboard; the more kills he scores, the more embarrassing it becomes for both sides."

"...As it stands, our time with the game was hands down the best multiplayer shooter experience we have ever had."

For me, Gears is all about the social experience:  the laughter, the set-up (communication and the freshness of a new round), the awesome visual spectacle of a well-placed shot(s), the amazing comebacks, the perfect pacing, the value of a life, and even just shootin' the breeze with friends in the Valley of Death.  So, to this point, my most highly anticipated features are as follows:

    A. The new weapons (Flamethrowers!  Proximity Mines!) and the tweaking/balancing of the old weapons.  

    B. Weapon specific melees, including the "Y" button pummeling.  It is the humor of it.  The chainsaw is still entertaining for me, even though I almost never kill by the saw myself.  It is so humiliating!  ha ha ha

    C. The promise of MANY MP maps because, as discussed in a previous thread, EPIC makes kick-ass maps.  There isn't any map for Gears one that I hate, and almost all of them I love.

The "Ghost" cam and screenshot/web stuff also rates very high, as do a ton of other announced features.

Minimization of the effects of lag/network related shenanigans, goes without saying.  I don't include the fixing of something that is broken in my list.