They've learned absolutely nothing from the last 14 years. Microsoft is entirely to blame, with their genius system of hiring contractors and having the most braindead people on the planet in management. It was no surprise this was going to be negatively received by Halo fans.
This game is simply an asset flip. It has reused Halo Infinite models for weapons, reused animations from Halo 5 and Halo Reach, and the AI behavior is straight up copied from Halo Reach. Like 1 for 1. The sound design is terrible to boot. The only good new sounds I think are the remixed assault rifle? Otherwise I have no idea who greenlit the most generic, flat sounding weapon sounds of all time. Of course, the environments look good, but that's the only thing UE5 games have going for them anyway. As with any UE5 game, they've forsaken identity and style for "realism." It's getting old.
If you've played Halo Reach's campaign as much as other Halo fans have, you'll basically have all the AI behavior memorized and it's not fun or unique to fight or play around. This game is built on Halo Reach, and they took the laziest, most worthless approach to a new game yet in this franchise. Marines are worthless. They don't follow the player. Elites still have their 3 frame insta-kill melee animation. I think Hunters are the only ones with more aggressive AI differing from Halo Reach? Either way they have no self preservation and will straight up just shoot the ground in front of them, making them unfair and frustrating to fight.
I'm a die-hard Halo fan. I want so badly to love this game and the franchise, and it's just been beaten out of me. I can't even bring myself to finish the main campaign, let alone the God awful prequel missions. 3 missions, an hour long each, with two of them just being "aimlessly clear through hallways until you get to big room. Wave defense, then aimlessly clear through hallways with absolutely no objective or flair to make it worth doing. Repeat. They're entirely forgettable and a flat out worthless addition to this game.
I'm not even going to talk about over-monetized skins in a single player campaign.
If you're looking for a great fresh take on a Halo CE campaign, I can recommend two phenomenal mods: one for Steam MCC, "Havoc Mod" on the workshop. And two, "SPV3" for Halo Custom Edition. (I think you can download it using MCC Combat Evolved but it's not on workshop.)
This game isn't worth your time let alone your money. Pirate it if you so badly want to experience this nightmare and kicking-of the long dead, rotten, desiccated horse that is the Halo franchise.
