Do you think there is anything interesting about Gears of War or its sequel, apart from the mechanics? Anything that will make you want to return to that game in some ill-imagined future? I'm thinking of trading them in, since they don't really offer any unique experiences I can think of, beyond the first playthrough. The story is laughable and other games have stolen their mechanics and improved them.
This is true of many games: You play through them once, maybe longer if they have some appealing mechanic or compelling multiplayer, and then you forget them forever. I enjoyed Mirror's Edge, Darksiders, the Professor Layton games, and Assassin's Creed, but I don't see myself returning to them.
A lot of people trade in every game they've finished, but I keep all my favorites. There are some works of fiction that I return to frequently; I play Half-Life 2 as often as I read Slaughterhouse-Five or watch Brazil. It is unthinkable that any of them would be absent from my permanent collection.
