Gears of War 2

Back in 2006 when Gears of War came out I was completely and utterly blown away, It was everything a stereotypical man could want in a game; blood, guts, aliens, guns, chainsawing aliens rendering them a fountain of blood and guts, and of course the large steroid dependent space marines.
Gears was extremely gritty, it conveyed the 'shit hit the fan' atmosphere amazingly through the use of excessive amounts of blood, extremely detailed textures and the trademark roadie run.
While the game was an undeniable success it did have its fair share of problems, the most apparent of which were the bad team-mate AI in the single player, texture popping, and underdeveloped online multiplayer.
The multiplayer was my biggest disappointment in Gears, while people will proclaim the multiplayer as the greatest thing since Counter-Strike I just couldn't overcome the issues it had.
I found the weapons to be extremely unbalanced, the shotgun was usually the weapons of choice for everyone since it was so ridiculously powerful, but then you had to take into account the somewhat random hit detection.
The maps were buggy and it just completely sucked the fun out of the game when people figured out how to jump out of the map and take out people from a distance.
The other main problem with the game was the storyline, or lack thereof, although Gears had a great premise it didn't actually develop on it, in the end it basically boiled down to 'armed marines go get bomb, put in hole, kill big monster', pretty disappointing since they hired a professional writer for the game.
So Gears 2 has finally been announced, we all knew it was going to happen but the question on every gamers mind was, when?
Microsoft revealed at GDC that emergence day is currently scheduled for some time in November of this year.
While I'm looking forward to the game I do have some requests;

1. Place more of a focus on the story telling in Gears 2, sure its a testosterone fueled shooter and we love it for that, but we loved the first one for that, Gears 2 needs to actually deliver in terms of story.

2. Take some time to iron out the kinks, that means the buggy maps, the texture popping, and suicidal artificial intelligence (give Dom some common sense).

3. Develop the multiplayer, the groundwork has been laid out, refine the gameplay so that luck becomes less of a factor and skill is what sets a player apart, let us play with more than 8 people in one match and get rid of that god awful host advantage.

Obviously the game needs to evolve but i really hope that they also address the problems that plagued the first game, come on Cliffy...don't let us down.