Who said delays weren't good for something? In an effort to fill the intervening months between Gears of War 3's one-time April 2011 release and its new "holiday season" 2011 release, publisher Microsoft issued the following terse announcement: "We plan to host a public multiplayer beta for Gears of War 3 in 2011 featuring dedicated servers." With all that extra development time between release and the beta, Epic should be able to implement feedback from gamers into the final boxed product.

We don't have many other details regarding the beta, but we do have a preview of the game's multiplayer component, in which lead level designer Jim Brown told us that dedicated servers should level the playing field for gamers and help the dev circumvent the issues Gears of War 2 experienced at launch.