We are mere weeks away from the release of Gears of War 3, and I've been lucky enough to have played a few of the game's modes and seen it in action at various shows and events. The game looks great, and it seems like it will bring a few new ideas to the table while improving on the already-fun Gears of War 2. The game has nothing to worry about in the buzz department, and the Internet has dutifully been talking about the game's latest trailer.

The problem is that the trailer doesn't exactly play fair, and the use of music feels more like a gimmick that anything that gives an accurate idea of how the game will play. It's certainly a little different from what we're used to seeing in trailers for this kind of game, and that's a trick Epic has used to great effect in the past, but it's also something of a cheat: did any of the past games make you feel the emotions you experience watching these trailers?

Just so we're all on the same page, I've embedded the trailer. Give it a watch, and enjoy Mazzy Star.

People are raving about this trailer—the same way the "Mad World" trailer was gushed about when it was released years ago—but it's beginning to feel like a shortcut to me. There is nothing special going on with the editing of the trailer that grabs my attention, and if anything it looks like a fan took a section from a standard cutscene and then dubbed in one of their favorite songs. The use of music is somewhat novel, but it's an emotional cheat. Is the game going to make me feel like I did when I watched the trailer? The effectiveness of the trailer comes not because Gears of War has a compelling story or that we're invested in the characters at this point. It's effective because a pretty girl is singing an achingly beautiful song in the background.

Heck, the "Mad World" trailer worked for many of us because we still have a deep connection to that song after its use in the cult hit Donnie Darko. When I watch that trailer I'm not sad and wistful because of the destruction the Locust have caused, I think of the last scenes of that movie, and how well everything worked together. In Donnie Darko the song worked to bring out emotion that was already there, like pairing a good wine with your meal. In the trailer for Gears of War the song does all the heavy lifting.

If anything, this reminds me of those fan-made trailers that take comedy movies and make them seem like horror films, or vice versa. At least those use skillful editing tricks and tropes from genre trailers to make their point. The Gears trailers, in contrast, only have the music to fall back on. The "Mad World" trailer was even effectively parodied by Bad Company. That gave us a good idea of what we were getting into with Bad Company by introducing the characters with humor, and skewering the somewhat heavy-handed emoting we find in the Gears trailers.

It's slightly unfair to call out Gears for this, because Dead Island is guilty of the same basic thing, although that trailer was more of a short film than a badly edited music video. Halo has also benefited from trailers that point to emotions that are found nowhere in the actual game. In many cases I've talked to people who tell me they feel things because they remember their reaction to watching the trailer, not playing the game. That's backwards and annoying. Is a song enough to re-contextualize an entire game, or series of games?

I wish we could have trailers that pull from the actual game in order to provoke an emotional reaction, instead of relying on juxtaposition to make the point. I wish there were moments in Gears of War that actually made me feel like these trailers do. It's not that the games aren't emotional—I can think of one or two moments off the top of my head that hit hard—but these trailers are painting the picture of a game that doesn't really exist. It's a ploy, a shortcut to an emotional connection, and it's becoming a formula when it comes to sell action games.

It takes more than a sad song put over now-familiar scenes of violence to create a poetic or affecting image. I want to connect to the game, not a song that brings its own baggage.