Eh I am just annoyed with a lot of the decisions that have been made with Halo 4. I've spent a huge chunk of my life playing this game, and growing up with it. It's sad that the game came out less than a month ago and I stopped playing it weeks ago just out of lack of interest.
I come off abrasive with some of the things I say, no doubt. But it's just hard to not have passion for a franchise that I was so invested in.
In a way though, 343 have done me a massive favour. As I'm reaching further into my twenties it's a boon to me that Halo is no longer as addictive as crack like the original trilogy was. It's a slide in passion for the series that started with Reach, so it's not just 343. However their continuation of some of Reach's worst excesses just allows me to step back from Halo now and play it a few times a week instead of every day.
People heavily criticized Halo 3 in its era as uncompetitive, BR spread whining etc. Five years later Halo 4 makes Halo 3 look like a hardcore competitive shooter out of the box in comparison. Halo 3 had:
*Your military rank tied directly to how good you were at the game, incentivising self improvement and team play and contributed to Halo feeling like a sport.
*Half of MM's playlists were were ranked, a rank visual to everyone (so unconcerned for players feelings, like Dark Souls!), and were top of the MM list above social.
*A sniper that was difficult and rewarding to master. Its power was proportional to its difficulty of use, a concept lost in the age of the Binary Rifle and sprint Swording.
*Every player starting the game equal. Want camo? Earn it. Overshield? Learn its location, and, as you improve over the months, learn its respawn times. You don't deserve an overshield because you got a lucky triple using an Incineration Cannon which dropped from the heavens at your feet.
Hardcore game.
Like I said, I'm glad they de-personalised Halo into this fractured, identity confused, fiesta flavoured, uncompetitive milieu of contemporary shooter eclecticism. Gives me more time for more important things in life. And I do enjoy Halo 4. I love shooting its guns, I love the thruster pack and the fact I no longer have to spawn with an AR. But, like Reach, I enjoy it under a specific set of circumstances and, also like Reach, the game breaks down at the highest levels of play (AA abuse a primary culprit) and there is no incentive to play at a high level so I play silly shit. In Reach, it basically boiled down to playing Headhunter in Multi-team and trying to out-do my friend in how many kills we could manage in a single match. My playlist history in Halo 4 has been dominated after the first week by Regicide, another party gametype.
Sure as shit didn't stop them from messing around with another developer's game. It would be kind of fucked up if they modified Reach as much as they did but treated their design decisions as sacrosanct.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=43240786&postcount=12039
