Replaying the campaign about a year later made me realize how barebones the game actually is. The open world concept is not utilized at all really with most of the ring being empty and a single biome. The vehicles don't feel like they fit in either with them getting stuck on every little rock / shrub, which really feels like a missed opportunity being open world and all.

Then the story, man you can just feel the development hell leaking through as almost every cutscene is just exposition being dumped on you through a growling brute. I don't mind the direction of a more character driven story, it did have some nice moments, but you learn just about nothing by the of it end. So many questions are still left in the air seemingly for DLC that will never come. The overall lack of epic set pieces and little to no variety in levels makes it feel so shallow compared to the other games. Halo 5's story was much worse but at least it had its scarab-equivalent level.

I do admit the general gunplay and enemy variants are still really fun to fight, especially in co-op. The selection of weapons are pretty versatile and each of them feel pretty good to use. The visual style and audio design are also really nice, grounding their roots back into the original trilogy. Not the best technically looking game, especially when it comes to the facial animations, but the art design is there. Sadly that's about all Halo: Infinite has going for it.

I won't even go into the multiplayer side of things as that's its own conversation. It's exhausting being a fan of this franchise these days, don't even get me started on Master Cheeks over on Paramount...