Did Gears of War Innovate the Cover System
From the editorial:

"As the graphical prowess of Xbox 360 games become a familiar and taken-for-granted normality, they have to individually reinvent themselves on a deeper level, in order to stand out from the crowded release schedules and stand up to the test of time. While it may be an obvious fact, good graphics only give a game temporary appeal since they can become outdated relatively quickly, but good game design is timeless and classic. An innovative design feature in a game may quickly become a selling point of its entire genre, with subsequent clones adapting it with ill-consideration merely to get a slice of the profits, but its original invention and subsequent reinvention proves that, as Epic's mantra goes: design is indeed God."