I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, so please direct me somewhere else if this section is wrong.
Really, Halo 4's campaign really is disappointing IN MY OPINION. Bungie has developed the Halo universe to be a large and gorgeous one, and 343 Industries kind of messed it all up in a single game
I'm not saying that 343 Industries sucks or anything. I appreciate that they've made Halo 4 look amazing visually, through mocap and rebuilding the environment. Its awesome that they've rebuilt the gun sounds through field audio recording. All these really amazes me, but again, the campaign's story is disappointing.
I'll just keep it simple so that those who've played the campaign can understand it. 343 Industries is trying to make Halo 4 more of a personal story rather than more of a "Saving Humanity" type, although the threat against humanity has again, risen due to the Didact's awakening. But this just fails, in my opinion.
"SPOILERS"
Cortana just 'dying' in the end does not really impact the feelings of one that much, but from the Vidocs, 343 Industries seem to think otherwise. Cortana is just a side character who might be important to John, but not to players. All she does is advise the Chief, and nothing else. In Halo 4, we start to get closer to Cortana, but that doesn't mean making her die will bring much sadness to the story.
What I see is 343 Industries failed to understand that a character's personality should be exploited over a long period of time for us to care, so that the intensity of sadness will be much greater. Again, Cortana is just a side character, so who bothers if she dies? The Master Chief might, but most of us won't. Look at Mass Effect 's Commander Shepard, or Red Dead Redemption's John Marston. I'm pretty sure most of you felt intense sadness when they died respectively, and I actually cried in both of the games' endings. Why? Because I actually care about them. John Marston's personality and story was exploited, and so was Shepard's. But so was Cortana's personality right?
Yes, but so what if she dies? She's not the protagonist or any kind of hero - she's not the Master Chief, who's the hero as we all know. She did not save the Pillar of Autumn from utter destruction like Noble 6 did, nor did she save humanity in any visible way. She might have been the reason why the Chief was able to successfully save humanity through her advises but who notices this? If a police officer saved your life, would you agree that he is the hero, or the guy who gave the officer intel about you in danger as the hero? Of course the officer. That's what I'm trying to say, that Cortana's story in Halo 4 doesn't work.
Another thing 343 Industries messed up is about the Forerunners. Bungie had made the Forerunners seem very mysterious to us, through all the Halo games. Yet everything about them is revealed in a single go - in a single game, in a 6 hours campaign. Without proper explaining (unless you find all the terminals and read all the books), Halo 4's story just ends up in the middle of Cortana's story and the Didact's not well motivated revenge. And that Didact, supposedly Master Chief's nemesis, who plans to destroy humanity, is killed immediately in the short campaign of 6 hours. So how does the feeling of 'suck that *******' or 'finally the story ended after 3 games and it's awesome to know humanity survived' get to us when he died? Again, like how the story failed to fully exploit Cortana's situation to bring further sadness, the story also failed in slowly revealing the Forerunners and in bringing an end to a rivalrous foe. Furthermore, I haven't really understood the true intentions of the Covenant - all I know, what i've always known, is that they are after Forerunner relics, so there's no need to tell that, but please give additional details about their intentions.
One last thing I want to mention is the lack of humanity in the story, despite what 343 Industries' Vidocs' are trying to promote. I don't know whether it is the UNSC personnel's nature to act like that, but I didn't find Master Chief being treated like a respected war veteran in the game, even by Lasky himself.
So therefore, to summarise it all, the story failed to create the feeling of sadness and have not exploited the full potential of the Forerunners properly. Again, it's my opinion, and I do not intent to offense anyone with this, of course.
But, I should thank 343 Industries for making the game sound and look beautiful, although I wish Firefight wasn't removed.
And does anyone know how to kind of 'complain' to 343 Industries? Because I don't want another disappointing Halo game, because they are the ones with the most replayable value.