Last week Epic released a new set of maps as called Snow Blind map pack.  The map pack includes four maps that are all snow themed.  There are three new maps and a new look to Fuel Depot from the first Gears of War game.  There has also been a update to the ranking system in Gears of War 2's multiplayer to use the experience points gained in matches. 

The four maps are all nice midsized maps that are perfectly balanced maps with nice areas to battle in the middle of the maps.  The four maps are called Under Hill, Grindyard, Courtyard and Fuel Depot.  Under Hill seems to be the most popular as it's a nice combination of indoor and outdoor areas to fight.  Grindyard is a very industrial map with lots on bases and nooks and crannies to fight.  Courtyard is a wide open outdoor map that feels like a bigger Jacento.  Fuel Depot is just like the original one except it's daytime and it's snowing.

It was about time that Gears of War 2 fixed their ranking system.  Unfortunately instead of going down the Halo 3 format they decided to go down the Call of Duty 4 path.  Everyone's ranking is reset to 1 and you will gain points from playing public competitive multiplayer matches.  The points you earn in matches is not exactly a one to one ratio since some game types scoring 6,000 points is fairly easy to do.  Instead it seems Warzone and Execution are almost 1 to 1 but Annax and King of the Hill is more like a small sliver of the points you' score in a match.

The ranking system has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with how much time you want to spend in the game.  So you will be playing in games were people have are level 20 and are horrible.  You will also face off against a 5 and get smoked.  Most people so far are still in the teens and low 20s and in theory you are matches against platers of similar skills.  One thing this update didn't do was speed up finding a match.  Check out the video below to see the maps.