Microsoft's Gears of War: E-Day went on sale October 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, after Premium Edition pre-orders got early access. The prequel holds an 88 on Metacritic and 87 on OpenCritic.
IGN gave it 9/10, praising its characters and evolved enemies, weapons and combat. Pure Xbox scored it 10/10, while GameSpot was cooler at 7/10, saying the combat has changed little in 20 years.
The reviews cover only the single-player campaign, because multiplayer modes were not available to critics before launch.