Epic has released information on what will be contained in the fourth major title update to Gears of War 2. The update adds multiplayer experience rewards for playing Horde mode, improves the odds that downloadable content will appear in map selections (provided all players own the relevant DLC) and adds support for the deleted chapter, "Road to Ruin," which will be released on July 28th in the Dark Corners Map Pack. It also contains a host of bug fixes, closes a few exploits and makes some balance adjustments.

More importantly, the multiplayer game will now warn players when they are about to drop out of a match that they will lose multiplayer experience for the action. With luck, that may convince some people to actually stick around to the end of a game that they're losing. If I had my druthers, that message would be a painfully long, slow, auto-scrolling message that could not be exited until it reaches its conclusion. That, to me, is a far greater punishment for dropping out than losing a few XP.

The update is currently going through Microsoft's certification process and is expected to release in the next few weeks.