Gears of War: Reloaded hammered in Steam reviews for missing splitscreen co-op and Microsoft accounts seemingly crashing everyone's fun, including mine

The PC launch for Gears of War: Reloaded has stumbled like Marcus Fenix flubbing a reload, with many players criticizing a sudden lack of splitscreen co-op as well as abundant crashes.

At the time of writing, Gears of War: Reloaded sits at 49% positive user reviews on Steam. I played up to Act 3 of the game with an online co-op buddy last night, and the campaign looked and played just fine, but I did encounter some of the crashes that other players have reported.

Multiple Steam users say Gears of War: Reloaded began crashing on startup after they adjusted their graphics settings or linked their Microsoft accounts. The game prompts you to sign in via Microsoft after your first boot.

This step went just fine for me, but after linking my Microsoft account, subsequently disconnecting, and force quitting the game, I also found it impossible to boot Gears of War: Reloaded at all anymore. It crashed on startup multiple, multiple times even after restarts.

I ended up refunding it on Steam, renewing my Xbox Game Pass sub, and redownloading the game through the Xbox PC app. This version of the remaster has performed fine for me for a few hours now, suggesting there is genuinely something wrong with the Steam version.

Steam users have also skewered alleged "false advertising" after the removal of the "Shared/Splitscreen Co-op" tag from the game's Steam page and the lack of splitscreen co-op, a Gears staple, in-game.

Archived versions of the Steam page, as recent as July 8, show that this tag was indeed on the store, below "Online Co-op" and above "Cross-Platform Multiplayer."

A blurb in the page's description, under the subhead "Built for Brotherhood," has also been changed. It previously read (emphasis mine): "Campaign Co-Op: Crush the Locust threat together through campaign split-screen or online co-op. Fight on with your squad in Versus multiplayer running at up to 120fps with unmatched clarity and visual fidelity."

The live version of the Steam page reads: "Campaign Co-Op: Crush the Locust threat together through campaign online co-op. Fight on with your squad in Versus multiplayer running at up to 120fps with unmatched clarity and visual fidelity."

I've seen reports of botched ultrawide support and missing pre-order bonuses as well, but I can't personally confirm those. Suffice it to say, Gears of War: Reloaded has hit some snags on PC.

I am at last having fun with the game, and so is Oscar, who writes: I can finally share meat-tastic cover shooting bliss with my PS5 friends thanks to Gears of War Reloaded.