There’s no doubting that Gears of War 2 is an excellent game, but this excellence has been marred by persistent bugs, exploits and connection problems in the online multiplayer. There’s no point in owning one of the best games of 2008 if you can’t have any lasting fun with it. Thankfully a fix is now on the way.

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein has posted on the Gears of War forums with information about the next patch, which we can expect sometime this month.

“We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January,” Rein said.

Top of the list are fixes for a bunch of online exploits; including the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through walls and gain infinite Lancer ammo. Exploits like these are primarily the kind of things that have been ruining the game for players, as there’s always someone who will advantage of these exploits and, basically, cheat to win the game.

There will also be a few changes to the ruleset, including increased penalties for quitting matches early (I personally hate it when people do this).

Finally, achievement whores will be glad to know that some new achievements will be added for December’s downloadable content.

You can check out the rest of the changes here, plus Mark promises that a more detailed list will be posted soon.

If you don’t have Gears of War 2 yet then check out PriceGrabber for the cheapest prices.  Go on, treat yourself!