This is another game I feel like I remember getting a lot more hate back when it released than it really deserved. It seemed like everyone just kind of automatically didn't like 343 because they weren't Bungie. Does this game have problems? Sure. Not enough to warrant that much discord though.

I remember when I first started up this game and I was looking around to find the first enemies, I actually hoped that the game would go in a different direction from the previous trilogy, and have us fight an enemy that wasn't Covenant or Flood. Only to immediately come across a grunt trying to kill me. While we eventually got what I originally wanted with the Didact and his combatants, the whole inclusion of the covenant as an enemy feels annoying in the beginning and downright unnecessary by the end. Especially in the later levels when you spend a bunch of time fighting the Didact forces only to then come across a covenant squad that also conveniently wants to kill you. The most infuriating thing about this is that it isn't even explained how the treaty forged in Halo 3 apparently fell apart, I mean I'm assuming they'll cover that in the next games, it just does feel rather unaddressed.

New characters are fun, I liked Lasky but the old captain was a total rundown of the "meathead military general that doesn't listen to anybody" trope to an almost embarrassing degree. I mean Chief has been out for only 4 years and the other captain looks to be in his 60s, you're really telling this me this dude has no idea who Master Chief is and isn't gonna take whatever he says very seriously?

And man, Cortana. By the end of the game every time she tuned in I'd just be grimacing at everything she was going through. But also, is anyone else left kind of confused as to what exactly Cortana is?....was? I mean in CE we're led to believe she's been with the team and chief for a while, that she's more standard class and every ship has some sort of Cortana. Then in Reach we find her in a forerunner artifact and transfer her to the Autumn like a week before CE, meaning she couldn't have interacted with Chief prior to that. Now with this one they seem to be back to Cortana being more standard issue, with her talking about remembering her learning/training, etc. It really makes finding some consistent canon here difficult.

All in all though, not that bad a game, could have been a little bit longer but honestly I didn't mind it too much.