I was dissapointed, but I'm not done with it. I played on heroic, in co-op, this changes things, like graphic detail.
Some of the levels were quite bad, I thought. The first level is especially uninteresting when it should blow you away to open the game. I still feel this way about the first section even after playing it again by myself. Some levels where still awesome, like the bridge and MC's first mission on the ring, but there where numerous instances where both my teammate and myself had difficulty in finding the next place to go, nearly one ot two a level, where in the original Halo I never had this problem.
I did not dig the Arbitor. All the previews showed me the Master Chief Show and I came for the Master Chief Show. Time will tell if I ever warm up to the new guy...
I was down for MC using Covenant weapons, because he always had, I was leery of the elites using human weapons (and not reloading their own, WTF?) but I was annoyed that the flood where now using any damn weapon they pleased and jumping into tanks and driving around. Jesus, that's stupid. These are s'posed to be zombies or sumpin, why are they driving hovercraft? When the human, covenant, and flood can all use the same weapons and drive the same vehicle, what the fuck is the point of having three different races anymore?
Mostly, I felt dissed by the plot. The game opens up and nobody seems very suprised that there are covenent ships trying to invade Earth. I guess they were expecting it but there was no "ooomph" the the opening for me. I wanted to be welcomed back to the Halo saga, and be bursting with excitment to be there; instead it came off to me like just another episode in some cartoon show. "Looks like Cobra's at it again!"
Worse is how it didn't end. Duder asks Master Chief what he's doing on that ship, MC sez "finishing this battle!" then the music swelled a little too long and I said "Son of a bitch." That was just not an ending, it was an advertisment for Halo 3 and Xbox 2.
Christ, it was Matrix Reloaded all over again for me.
