I've enjoyed Spartan Ops episode 3. It's the only part of H4 that I've thought "Hey this is actually a lot of fun!", despite having to willingly allow the reuse of maps and Campaign terrain. That's fine to me now that I am starting to get it. I'm hoping for some sort of vindication for Halsey as at the moment I can't work out if the hatred towards her is the result of a really effective smear campaign by ONI or if its just shoddy writing. Palmer could either be a gullible fool who bought into ONI intelligence reports about Halsey and doesn't understand the idea of utilitarian return-on-investment or she's just a badly written character in a world where people never need to make "tough calls" except for evil people. It's a tough pill to swallow especially considering what other things ONI has been up to, and what they've endorsed, as well as coupled with the utterly fearsome intelligence of an average Spartan (see Kat). So for Palmer there are a few possible options; -She's an idiot and doesn't understand that people make 'tough calls' for the greater good. Despite being a Spartan and soldier and commander. -She's badly written and that aspect was never even considered. She's just a stereotype Stargate character who condemns anyone who made a tough call. As for H4 as a whole....... it's lost the spark. Halo always changes a certain amount with each game, but for me the jump from H3/Reach to H4 was just a bit too much. It's not necessarily the whole package, as there are some amazing elements in H4, but just some certain major aspects that pull everything back down. When I look at a game like H1 or even Reach I get a sense of consistency and focus (for better or worse) but with H4 I just get the sense that they didn't really know what they wanted, they just had ideas of things they liked and didn't really wonder how they would work in combination. "A camel is a horse designed by committee"