Gears of War is hardly extreme. It's one of the most mainstream games around, and so are the executions in it.
Which is a whole other conversation about how prevalent and glorified extreme violence is in modern video games
That's my point. And no one gives a fuck about Gears of War's executions.
Context, context, context. The world and people that inhabit Gears of War are a whole other universe from something like Tomb Raider. Lara Croft was never a COG hardass soldier, especially now, when the game goes through tortuous hour after hour of showing what a vulnerable teenage girl she is. The game tries to have it both ways.
Hell, Gears had the same problem. There were a lot of complaints about how Dom's tragedy was at odds with the jovial bang-bang shooty atmosphere and one-liners the game quickly goes back into.
It reminds me of Rambo: First Blood based on what I've seen, or Die Hard. Is it "torture porn" when John McClain walks on glass in his bare feet? Or maybe gritty action is only bad when it's a woman.
Various reviews have made the opening sound like it's one scene of John McClane stepping on broken glass after another, REALLY driving home just how terrible everything is. You can argue about the term torture porn, but that's really not the fuckin' point here. Rambo, especially, as far as we know, has always been a grizzed war badass. The violence in Rambo 4 gets pretty crazy, but coming from Rambo, it actually makes a bit of sense giving his, ya know, entire fuckin' character.