It doesn't seem like anything has improved over Gears of War 4. The Marvel-style writing is still awful. The game feels bland in general. The only strong points are the graphics and controls/basic combat.

The predatory monetization (lootboxes and microtransactions galore in a full-price game) is completely unacceptable. I also died once because the partner AI couldn't figure out how to navigate around an object. This was less than an hour in.