According to the Gears of War website, it looks like we’ve stumbled into a free Xbox Live weekend for Xbox gamers out there with Silver accounts. More specifically, if you aren’t currently paying for Xbox Live Gold service but do in fact own Gears of War 2, Microsoft is letting you get in on some online multiplayer this weekend and this weekend only. The floodgates have been open since 12:00 P.M. EST today, and will abruptly close at 11:59 A.M. on Monday, August 3rd.

This short window of opportunity for offline fraggers matches up nicely with the release of the 1200 MP Dark Corners and 1600 MP All Fronts DLC packs. The former contains 7 new multiplayer maps, as well as the Road to Ruin campaign chapter, whereas the latter has all that new stuff, plus all the previously released map packs for a whopping total of 19 maps. If you dropped any Microsoft Points on either of these packs without having a Gold account, I kindly suggest you stop what you’re doing and get your butt on Xbox Live right now.