The multiplayer is not for casual Gears players, you must master the long and very difficult learning curve in order to become proficient in the multiplayer, either pick up the Gnasher or get out. The multiplayer has a VERY steep learning curve and if you are not a veteran of the last 2 versions of the multiplayer then you will not be welcomed into the Gears 3 multiplayer. This is just my opinion though, this is not the views of the majority of the community who plays the multiplayer. This is where I sadly say Gears 3 doesn't shine. You could turn on a mutator that results in the enemies bleeding flowers.ДЄfter all is said though it is still Gears of War but smoother and with more content, considering how boring and rather clunky the first Gears of War was this is a major improvement. Combine that with the new Arcade Mode and Mutator unlocks you could set up some ridiculous campaign scenarios for you and your friends to play in. Unlike previous GOW entries the campaign can now be played with 4 players instead of your regular 2. These enemies really change your combat strategies as the Lambent enemies come varied and sometimes they won't die the first time around and will mutate with the ability to take you out with more abilities to do so. This could result in your death or could be to your benefit, you could kill one giant Lambent and defeat the ones surrounding it due to the massive explosion. The Lambent are also enemies you do not want to get that close to as they explode once they're defeated. The Lambent however add a twist to the combat, the Lambent are somewhat more resisting of the damage from the bullet fed weapons resulting in even the Lancer not being able to mow down the Lambent as easy as the Locust. Going in and out of cover transitions much more smoother then the last 2 games, same goes for the Roadie Run, you can run through the battlefield smoothly while ducking incoming fire and getting behind cover.Д¬ombat is more or less the same except it being much smoother, you'll still have to hide behind cover and shoot at the enemy. This doesn't seem like it would give you the 'push' you're speaking of though.Gears of War 3 plays very similar to the last two entries in the series, if you've played either one of the last two Gears of War games, adapting to Gears of War 3 will be relatively easy. The Meat Shield can be 'dropped' at any time by performing an execution move with the 'X' button, in which the player's character will snap the neck of the Meat Shield and drop the corpse, or simply by switching weapons.

You may also want to read the article on Meat Shields, which has some interesting excerpts: The idea of this execution is to take out a nearby enemy or to put him at a disadvantage at least if you had a smoke or ink grenade. This will make the player tag the meat shield with whatever grenade they happen to have in their inventory, then kick him/her towards the enemy causing them to sort of quickly stumble toward the enemy if there is an enemy you're aiming at within proximity. This is done by tapping up on the D-pad when you have a downed enemy as a meatshield. This execution is performed after taking a downed enemy for some quick cover as a meat shield. This sounds like the Bag & Tag execution, from the Gears of War Wiki:

Gears of war 3 executions