John, you need to stop double posting, in this case, triple posting (ps request mod to merge posts)
But variety?, in Halo CE-3, you jsut fought Flood and Covey, not much 'variety' there.
Then the end, it was inevitable that Noble 6 would die at the end of Reach, most spartans did if you read the books.
And that's what games are designed to do, bring emotion to you on a different context. Like movies and books do, this brought a sense of loss for your character, but a sense of accomplishment, as you know you set up the trilogy that you get to play.
Same 'feel'?, of course it wasn't it was a completely new game that had been evolved from the previous ones. It also had different themes and was set earlier so it was said to be different. Then to add to that, it was a completely new engine, so again, it was seen to be different right from the get go of production.
Well that's how I took it, expecting some critism for this.