Way to sweeten the deal, Epic! On top of the two free Gears of War maps that will be available 1/10/07, a much needed multiplayer patch will be released on 1/09/07. The official list of fixed issues from Mark Rein himself:

• Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480
• Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
• Players can now get the Achievement for "Dish Best Served Cold" when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
• Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
• Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
• Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
• Enabled “Strict” NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
• Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
• Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
• Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
• Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
• Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
• Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
• Added additional cheat detection code
• Additional housekeeping updates

Since host names will no longer be visible in ranked matches, hopefully there will be a decrease in one-sided games. In any case, the amount of grenade tag kills will surely go down once this patch is released.

[Thanks, Snaileb]