I finished this around the same time as ODST, so the two impact each other in how I think about them.

Suffers from all the same problems all the other games in the series fall victim to, while buffing out a few others. It's wonderful to see a story set around a squad, as I think this is the more natural structure for the halo universe. Showing a group of soldiers impacted by this war is the story I think the Spartans should be telling. Jorge is far and away the most satisfying of the character stories, and his loss is felt. Sadly, the first 1/4 of the game is spent building Jorge into a character you feel for, while the others are merely background decoration. So when Kat is killed, it feels cheap, lacking any punch.

This game definitely benefitted from the experiments that ODST started. The new powers add a great dynamic change to the missions, squad narrative, and a protagonist that actually speaks are great improvements upon the previous Halo entries.

I still find myself a little lost from mission to mission. We talk to Halsey, then we run around trying to destroy the super carrier (to protect the planet?), then get back to Halsey's mission. It often just feels like a 'go here do this, repeat' and no overarching desire for the characters.

A nice departure in some ways from the main-line halo games, but didn't go far enough in my opinion. Impressive for sure given the production timeline. The story felt entirely "go here and do this, because!" for 90% of the game. I wish that we would have known earlier on that we needed to save an engineer, and each of the missions was brining us closer to understanding where that thing was or why it was important. Being 'rookie' and spending the entire game just filling in the gap in time that your character spent hungover in his pod didn't really connect for me. Perhaps it would have been more emotionally connecting if we didn't play a voiceless protagonist. Very repetitive, more so than other Halo games.