Gears 2 patch adds Social Matches
Can be joined mid-game.
Epic Games has rolled out Title Update 6 for Gears of War 2.
Social Xbox Live Matches are the big new addition. These are available to those of you who downloaded all Gears of War 2 DLC maps. Epic promises to "dramatically reduce" the price of the All Fronts Collection to assist with this.
Social Matches can be joined mid-game and quit without penalty (although extra XP will not be earned). If there are no games available your party will start a new map and fill unused player slots with bots.
Social leaderboards will be part of the War Journal.
An an effort to aid differentiation, Public Matches are being renamed Ranked Xbox Live Matches, and Private Matches will become Custom Xbox Live Matches.
There are numerous tweaks to the online multiplayer and exploit fixes besides.
The full Title Update 6 notes can be found on the Epic Games forum.