Gears of War is region free
And has been patched.
The US release of Gears of War is indeed region free as reported.
Our copy of the game turned up this morning (well, mine - he says, guarding it jealously) and works fine on the PAL Xbox 360.
Loading it up on a retail unit also demonstrated that the game has already received a small auto-update, which apparently fixes a few minor bugs.
For more on the game, be sure to check out our review, and look forward to an expanded take on the multiplayer soon.
(And seriously, don't pay too much attention to that EA bloke - Gears may call to mind games like kill.switch and other things we've experienced before, but there's no denying that the composition is in many respects excellent, which was the point we made when we reviewed it.)
Anyway, look forward to the game's UK release next Friday, 17th November.