The Gorn have always been one of my favorite alien species on ST, and in honor of the Gorn being featured in the JJAbrams based ST game, EW.com has named it Gorn day. It feautres the new design of the Gorn. http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/02/25/star-trek-gorn-day/
I like the new-look Gorn, but I have serious reservations about their rumoured new backstory... Spoiler: The Gorn They're from another galaxy, which they've conquered through eons of war. They invade ours via wormhole. ...which I cannot reconcile with "Arena", let alone what the novelverse (and Star Trek Online) have built up. It seems the writers of the game are treating nuTrek as a clean reboot and not an alternate reality in the same multiverse. Not that that's a deal-breaker. It's just directly contrary to what the movie says, and Bob Orci confirmed (i.e. that history began to change when Nero appeared and started meddling) in 2009.
Well... Spoiler ...if these people were warmongers who controlled an entire galaxy (see HERE , there's no chance in hell they'd have stopped at Cestus III after what happened. "Arena" was about a misunderstanding, not Kirk heading off an extra-galactic invasion. Of course, these reports could be wrong in some details. Maybe there's no contradiction. But I suspect they've just taken "lizard monster fighting humans" and built an entirely new story around it.
Wrong!! http://absoluteworst.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/worst-fight-scene-from-star-trek/ Wrong!! Making the Gorn "EVIL" is also wrong...the Gorn were pretty much like the UFP...they had one major problem, apparently, they don't give WARNINGS before shooting!!! RAMA
One can't even reconcile those statements with what we see in the movie, so it's best not to take any of it seriously.
Well what the novelverse (and Star Trek Online) have built up really isn't binding. As for Arena maybe in the intervening decade the Gorn got a new government who didn't want to spend eons at war with another galaxy so they just stuck to the part they already conquered.