Gears of War - Emergence Day is November 12

Anticipated Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War will be hitting the shelves on November 12 - five days ahead of the launch of Sony's PS3.

Whilst Halo 3 was scheduled to go head to head, that has now slipped back, leaving the well-equipped Gears characters to hold the fort on their own.

We saw the game back at E3, and it looked outrageously good. Rather than standard run-and-gun gameplay, it has shoot-and-cover dynamics that make for something really cool and different.

However, you won't get a chance to try before you buy - unlike other 360 games of late, there won't be a demo of Gears on Xbox Live. You will see, post-launch, some downloadable content that Epic's Mark Rein has been getting rather enthusiastic about.

In a forum post, Mark said that ""I know we have some very cool plans - not 100 percent solid so too early to give any specifics - for additional downloadable... so that might take a higher priority than creating a demo."

We are desperate to get our hands on the final version - expect a full write-up on bit-tech as soon as it hits the shelves. Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.