Gears of War 3 getting multiplayer beta next year

Because multiplayer betas are the must-have accessory of any aspiring-to-be-a-blockbuster videogame, Epic has announced that Gears of War 3 will get its own beta test from early 2011.

Apparently, the beta was made possible by the recent gut-wrenching delay of the game to Fall 2011. So… yay? Furthermore, Epic has confirmed multiplayer will be running on dedicated servers, so the online experience should be Fonzie smooth.

While the beta won’t begin next year, today saw a ton of sites put up hands-on previews of the title’s multiplayer, and some men got terribly excited about this. Here are their words:

Joystiq | Shack | 1UP | IGN

[Via press release]