Dequire

Knowing the map well will still give you an advantage due to sniping points, good corners, dead ends, cliffs, and etc. Knowing the terrain can give you a big boost if you know how to utilize it. And seriously? Sales and online activity? Let's just talk about gameplay wise here for a second. CoD hasn't changed at ALL in the last few years. AT ALL. They sell so well because CoD fags piss themselves at the mention of another game. And while I admit Black Ops 2 did a better job then most of the other's, online play and sales is no excuse to "popularity". There is more to it than that. A LOT of small but incredible games get few sales because fewer people know/care about it, and thus smaller online activity, but they're still incredible games. The fact that people think only online play exists is starting to piss me off horribly.

UNSC, mostly because of the DMR/Battle Rifle. UNSC: DMR Covenant: Carbine Promethean: Light Rifle ...I think you can see where I'm going with this.

While I dislike how the the community constantly screams that Halo is dying, I agree with some parts. I dislike you people on a personal level, but there ARE some things I agree with. However, a lot of you people are flipping out over something that only adds to the player's personal experience. Sprinting. It's always made me rage how I can only go at a fast walk when I'm being shot at by a sniper. All Sprinting does is add that little bit of temporary speed in to the game. Let you get around that much quicker. I fail to see ANY issue with sprinting. It's pretty basic for most shooters. Loadouts. What. Is wrong. With going in. With your own personally selected weapons? There's no more freaking the **** out and raging because you can NEVER find your favorite gun. No more fighting because someone got that battle rifle before you. I personally love weapon load outs because they allow each player their own personal game play strategy without rushing to get the best weapons first. Sure that can be fun in FFA matches, but in a team game you're depriving your team mates of guns that would give them an edge due to their skill by taking that weapon. With the option to go in with your best weapons, you're offering better skills to your team mates and to the game so that everyone can be at their best every game. Armor Abilities. I have to say the same. Picking up cloaking and such in the battle field is nice, but frustrating and extremely limited. In Halo 3 there was, at most, a cloak and two over shields in every map. And that's all that there ever was. Ever. And it was irritating as hell because almost ALWAYS someone else got to it first. And while I do agree that some armor abilities are over powered or pointless, the majority of them are still very nice and give a nice feel to the game. You never know what your opponent is going to have and it makes you adapt and keep on your toes, while giving you the same advantages against others. Weapons. This is where I have some of my biggest issues with the game. Forerunner weapons obviously have the largest damage output and are really overpowered. As mentioned in the OP, the Scattergun is a good example. While fairly innacurate, anything within 10 feet is going to be pulverized. And while I don't use it much, the Boltshot is rather overpowered, especially with the charge shot ability. And the Forerunner sniper, while having half the ammo and clip size as the human sniper, AND a laser sight, it is still extremely difficult to NOT die when someone has this thing. While extremely lore friendly, this is ridiculous. And as also mentioned before, there are a LOT of instagib weapons that could be pulled back a bit. Specializations and abilities. Personally I'm fine with these. I believe that they could be given to players a little earlier, at say rank 30, but otherwise I'm perfectly fine with these. The upgrades aren't that bad so it's still pretty fair all things considered, and the fact that you earn weapon skins with it is pretty cool. Overall, the game isn't dying. It's simply evolving and changing. It isn't making GIANT changes that are going to completely destroy the game. Its just adding bits and pieces here and there to improve the game. If you don't like it, fine. But Halo is NOT CoD. Its going to change, and its going to remain a unique, fun experience. ...Excuse me, what? What did you just say? Please, explain to me how a game that hasn't changed since the first Modern Warfare is better then a game that is evolving, trying new things, and has a real storyline that isn't copy/pasted from history or a war book.

Everything makes a Spartan a Spartan. You can't just pick out one or two specific things.

This is why I'm rapidly losing faith in these forums. I've been here for three days and the only thing that I've seen you people do is ***** and whine about how 343 screwed up Halo. All you are doing is focusing on the bad stuff. Honestly multiplayer isn't broken. Its just missing a feature or two. Yeah it isn't that competitive, but really? You're not going to get everything you want in a new game with a new company. Just get over it. I'm just going to stop coming here entirely. I'm tired of hearing everyone whine and ***** over nothing.

Then obviously you haven't actually PLAYED Spartan Ops. Yes there are a number of cut outs from the campaign, but there are also a good number of unique and special maps, and even more with the new season coming out. I checked myself. Not to mention that there are actual reasons for going back to old maps, and they're also played from different angles with bits and pieces added or removed to make it fairly unique from last time. Now, don't get me wrong, I AM a little tired of the copy/paste maps, but I think that they pulled it off reasonably well. You, on the other hand, obviously played the first three maps and quit. There is actually a fairly interesting story, if you'd give enough time to actually play the damn series. And again, 343 is still new to this. You can't expect a perfect game, even with ex Bungie staff helping them work on it. There is going to be a few kinks. Give it time and have some god forsaken patience.

Okay.. This is irritating, and I notice something. Everyone is focused on multiplayer. Halo 4 is fine. For their first game ever, this was a GOOD GAME. A REALLY good game. You all should be happy that they kept Master Chief! The fact that Microsoft brought a brand new company in on a great, but dying series and made it feel like HALO is awesome. Halo Reached killed things a bit, but Halo 4 actually FEELS like another Halo game, not a bad remake. Sure it has a few issues, particularly with the love scene ending to the campaign, but honestly this feels like a damn Halo game to me. There aren't any extreme changes, they've made the armor abilities a LOT better, the load outs feel good and I'm happy with it, and the armor is cool. Honestly the multiplayer isn't too bad. It does seem to copy some features of CoD(But I am SO sick of that argument. CoD copied it's features from other things too), such as the Killcam (Which I hate with all my heart) and a few other things, but really the game is doing GOOD. The game isn't dying. It's in development. 343 will be releasing updates and hopefully adding and changing things based on the community's input. They're already adding game modes based on feed back. And I'm sure that in Halo 5 they will change things and make the game 10x better. 343 obviously WANTS Halo to be good. But they've got a big roll to fill. We have huge expectations. Sure they made a few mistakes with Multiplayer, but don't just focus on THAT. Spartan Ops is pretty ******* cool, particularly with it's own story line, and the campaign is really neat. The exp/Spartan Points can be a little irritating as you hit a dead brick wall at rank 20, but really by the time I hit that I was happy with my equipment. Still working to Rank 21. Halo just feels like Halo again and I'm just happy as all **** that its getting it's legs again. I'm truly anticipating updates, DLC, and additions to Spartan Ops, and a mentioned Elite Ops. Basically, TL;DR... Quit your bitching, it's Halo and the developers are new. The game feels like Halo. I call that a pretty good win.

Finally, someone gets it. Halo isn't dying. Halo 4 has bugs, and they were forced to release a bit early. SO FREAKIN' WHAT? A bit of time to work out the bugs and add new things. And considering that 343 Studios has never made a Halo game before.. They made a damn good Halo game.

Ever heard of something MAGICAL called PATIENCE? This is 343's first time making a Halo game. They're still listening to the fans and getting used to the system. Microsoft was putting a lot of pressure on the initial release, so they have to make due NOW, and its taking them time to get all of the really good improvements out. The game is basically still in development. All I can say for everyone is to just be patient. They'll get it right. There's no reason to post 300 complaint topics about how "Halo is dying" every day.

Sir, CoD uses those features, and is popular. It does not, however, make them the first. As the OP stated, games have been using those features for a very long time. Kill streak bonuses, item drops, loadouts, everything has been used by countless games before CoD started to even CONSIDER using them. The fact that so many people believe that just because something is popular that it is the one being copied, is ridiculous and just shows how blind you are. If anything, CoD copied all of those features off of a variety of games, with very few of them being unique. Now, if you would please step away and let the adults talk amongst themselves.

Spartan Ops is sort of an expansion on Firefight without being a total copy. Rather genius, if I may say so, and its rather nice. Even with its own storyline, if not quite as apparent outside of the cut scenes.

Um.. I have to bring something up here. Spartans are uber Hell Jumpers. Seriously.. Their armor is incredibly expensive and high tech. Hell Jumpers still exist. They're like the medium between Marines and Spartans, taking on high risk missions that aren't worth Spartan deployment.

What do you mean by that?

Ignore them. Sprinting is rather useful, but don't abuse it. Save it for when you need to get away from a fight quickly, or traverse a space rapidly.

Honestly, I believe you guys are just blowing smoke. It might just be me and my opinion, but the game is pretty damn great. Sure it has its issues, but you can't expect any game to be perfect. Make some suggestions, not scream that Halo is dying because there's some stuff you don't like.