Picked up my Epic Edition copy of Gears of War 3 today. I was very surprised at the quality of the items in the box. My pictures won't do these items justice, but I thought I'd share.
What immediately struck me in the store, was the size of the box. This thing is huge.
Open the top of box and you're greeted with a piece of styrofoam emblazoned with the COG symbol.
Remove the top piece of styrofoam and we get to see the top of the statue of Marcus Fenix, the box that contains the game and assorted swag, and the art book.
Here we have the art book on the left and the game box on the right. The COG medal in the box can be removed, and actually contains an XBOX Live code for some DLC.
Here's the statue of Marcus. Notice he's missing his gun.
The gun that the statue of Marcus is holding is packaged separate from the statue. It's fairly large.
Here's the statue all put together. You can't tell from my pictures (the weak ambient lighting in the room causes the flash to go off leave a nice shine on everything) but the detail is incredible.
Here we have the COG medal, removed from the DVD case.
With the game box open you can see the COG flag on the left (which has more items wrapped up inside it) and the case that actually houses the game on the right.
Here we have the COG flag, unfolded, with the backdrop for the statue in the background.
These are the story items that folded up inside of the flag.
The schematics for the Hammer of Dawn were also in the flag.
Here's the backdrop that was surrounding the statue when it was in the box.
Again, I apologize for the quality of the pictures. While my G2X has an 8mp camera on it the rom it's running takes forever to take a picture, so you have to try and hold the phone still for a long time. Just felt like sharing. The quality of the items in this package really surprised. I've purchased collector's editions of other games in the past, but this has been the best one so far.