In yet another MTV piece about Gears of War 2, Cliff Bleszinski revealed some of the film sequels he used as inspirations to the title. He cited Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Knight, and Aliens because of their ability to transcend the first movie with a decidedly “darker” tone.

From the interview:

['The Empire Strikes Back'] is the obvious one that everyone goes to, because it's darker. 'Dark Knight' as well — doing what the first one did but also having a darker twist on it and going places the first one wouldn't have had the ba--s to go and also doing everything on a larger scale. I think 'Aliens' is also a great one. Seeing dozens or hundreds of Locust pouring out of a hole, whereas in the first 'Alien,' it was just an alien, basically. ... I wouldn't say 'Predator 2' or 'Robocop 2' or any of those. Although we do have our share of '80s Stallone and Schwarzenegger winks and homages and whatnot.

Omitting Robocop is always a huge problem in my book. While the second movie’s plot was terrible, there were some excessively evil scenes brought about. Remember Murphy getting cut into pieces, then wriggling disjointedly outside of the police station? I cried. Granted, I was seven, but it still affected me more profoundly than Dom’s wife-searching.