3/10 The campaign is short, with a terrible fan-fiction story that is somehow bloated and rushed at the same time. The melodrama is shallow and certainly no improvement over the steel-ey but genuine Chief of old. This is not "growth" because we don't experience the change, Chief just suddenly acts differently for no reason. The new Promothean enemies are ridiculous bullet sponges with poor visual cues and good ideas like teleport executed randomly and haphazardly, punishing good players for playing well. Prometheans also don't fit well into the linear sandbox style because they are not unique like all the Covenant were. Rather then being arranged in different ways to craft a scenario, Prometheans are simply placed at intervals to be bludgeoned through. The backdrops and vistas are gorgeous. The music is not on par with Halo 1-3, but we were very spoiled with wonderful music. Halo 4's music is very good compared to the competition. Cortana actually has some very good dialog in just a few places. The campaign has Quicktime events, a particularly offensive feature, and these are PARTICULARLY badly timed. The multiplayer is terrible. It's chock full of fluff, randomness, and nonsense. It's not bad because it has so many new elements, it's bad because those elements weren't crafted to fit into a coherent experience. The result is an absolute catastrophe. It discourages team play, discourages map movement and control, doesn't reward skill while rewarding the most asinine behaviors. It has completely abandoned Halo's structured, , team based, competitive style. There is obviously much Halo 4 ripped off from it's competitors, and they ripped it off without actually finding a coherent way to work it into the game. The most significant thing that Halo 4 ripped off from Call of Duty is probably the thing that will be the least remarked. They ripped off a style of play in which the enemy players function like single player enemies with advanced intelligence, where the real goal is to achieve personal milestones rather than accomplish team goals- the most rudimentary of which is winning the game. Everything in Halo 4 is designed to supplement that approach. What is lost is the balance based on teamwork and cooperation in the competitive spirit, the very heart and soul of Halo multiplayer. Spartan Ops is a waste of time. You will be outraged they replaced Firefight with Spartan Ops once you see what it actually is like. It is hardly what the fans were promised. The game also has many bugs, glitches, and broken and missing features, and the developer has been extremely slow in fixing and addressing these major problems. The lack of customization in a series which has always been lauded for it is very hard to explain and accept. Ultimately this is a game for people who don't care about the actual content of the Halo series.
