I see this in a lot of game and film series. The third one pulls out all the stops and has the coolest guns/gadgets, thinking its the last in the series, then later on they make changes that are unnecessary.
The shotgun in halo 2 was worse than halo 1, for example.
The halo infinite shotgun is quite good.
HALO 3
My main point:
Halo 3 had a more robust weapon & item set.
Bring this into halo infinite.
Don't complain about "balance", from a game designers perspective this is a basic skill.
A few tweaks and it could still be rebalanced on a spreadsheet and some playtesting. I miss the semi-auto DMR.
Right now there are *less* toys to play with than there were in previous iterations so its a bit of a letdown. Its still halo and its still awesome, but I would like to see more weapon options. Keeps the game interesting.
Halo infinite is awesome. Just add more guns!