I'm still early in the game, having only played a couple of nights with friends, but the social features seem to be counter-productive. I'd like to play with friends, but I'm limited to a three man fire team. Meanwhile, when I go into a quest, there are other players there. We usually ignore one another. The only time they really stand out is when I find some relic or make some important discovery only to see them do the same thing seconds later, killing immersion. I don't see the point in other strangers being in the world, doing the same thing. Maybe if the game sought to pair my fire team with a related fire team (one that one of our friends is in, for example)...or maybe if the other fire team was always doing a different mission, so you just crossed paths... Then you go back to town with your fire team and 13 strangers. You don't chat or trade with them, so why are they there? They only serve to prevent someone from joining my fire team. Anyhow, I LOVED the Halo games (CE, ODST, and Reach were my favorites), but the feeling that the world is sort of empty (that mission where you just run around earth grabbing beacons...ugh, it's so tedious) coupled with not being able to play with my friends (I guess if we play end-game there are 6-man strikes) due to social features that don't meaningfully add to the game has me pretty down. Seeing the underground areas on Earth with level ?? enemies has me hopeful that there's a large end-game that will hopefully address these concerns. It feels like there's potential there, which would be great.