See, I think thats ignorant of the whole way a narrative is told in games to say there was 'so little character development'. Every single line of incidental dialogue, outside of a cutscene, is developing the characters. Seeing how the characters joke with each other, react to the macabre things like what happens to Tai and human prisoners, all of that dialogue that is happening through out is developing characters.
Perhaps you've just let yourself become inured to that dialogue, but for me that is the most important thing with setting the tone and it makes me feel totally connected to the character, especially when the character would mimic things you might be feeling at the time.
Think of a game universally accepted to having a GREAT story, Uncharted. Now, despite the differences in story and genre, the incidental dialogue to cut scene ratio is exactly the same. The gameplay dialogue is just amusing interactions and character development and then the cut scenes tend to deal more with the story at large.
Now, whatever you think of the Gears story at large, I find it hard to accept the 'little character development' when they pepper the whole game with this character developing dialogue. Hell, caring about Dom and Marcus is one of the reasons I love the franchise so much.
It was like a western wet dream. Clint, Sherrif Bullock and Givens all rolled into one.
