For a mainline Halo game, I didn't expect this one to have such a melancholy tone. The agonies of the development team can really be felt when playing the game, but despite that, it's the most solid Halo title 343 has made so far.

The gameplay feels great, shooting and traversing the environment is very smooth. Initially, I was skeptical about the addition of the grapple hook, but to my surprise it worked great and added a lot to both combat and exploration.

Same skepticism rings true for the hub like nature of the world. Again, I was surprised how well it worked here, none of the side activities ever felt intrusive, nor did the HUD get cluttered with "points of interest". Most of them were found naturally by just exploring the world.

Co-op worked decently, though we encountered some soft locks, luckily restarting the game or mission fixed most of these issues.

It's close to a really great game, it just needed that extra push to make it shine. Hopefully with the change in leadership at 343, they will rally together and make the new Halo entry their best one yet.