Listen to this and still tell me D2 has a brilliant score. The True Destiny score by Martin O'Donnell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYz3tQb77y4

I write my own music as a hobby. I’m familiar with both scores and this is not a zero sum game. Both are brilliant. But they are very different. They are different because what D2 needed from its soundtrack was very different than Halo or D1. Because D2 is a much more intimate story. D1 was about awesome external events. D2 was about soul-searching and coming to self-awareness. [i]”I can’t help feeling that this was all some kind of test....and that I failed.” ——-Ikora Rey.[/i]

[quote]D2 was about soul-searching and coming to self-awareness.[/quote] For like a minute.

Then you missed the point.

Up to the farm yes the music is great, very powerful and I had high hopes at that point. But then it pretty much turns into a high production standard backing track. Martin O’Donnell is a story teller with his music, just listen to the power and awe throughout the Halo series and Destiny 1. D2 is lacking something in flow, audio wise and I think the game would have felt a whole lot more enjoyable had he stuck around. You know, apart from everything else wrong with the game lol.

Disagree. O'Donnell's style is more dramatic and anthemic. Who ever wrote the music for Destiny 2s style is more subtle and more intimate...but no less effective. The role of soundtrack music isn't to dominate the action and to call attention to itself....or tell a story on its own. The role of soundtrack music is to support the story BEING TOLD, and to SUPPORT the emotions that the storytelling is trying to evoke. Done well? You don't notice it. You simply FEEL the emotions that the entire experience is trying to evoke. The emotional tenor of Destiny 2 is one of failure.....loss....and redemption. ...and the composer of the soundtrack handled them brilliantly.

Don’t get me wrong like I said it is still good, but in my opinion its not to the standard of Martin O’Donnell’s epic production. A game needs the drama and epic-ism (is that a word?) especially in keeping with continuity throughout a franchise or it doesn’t feel like the same game. The fact that the general feel of Destiny 2’s story, and the entire game for that matter, is “lacklustre” and that shows how it didn’t capture many hearts of the player base. What I am saying in my post, is that the soundtrack will have played a major roll in that general opinion of detachment. And I bet if Marty had seen it through, it wouldn’t have been “quite” as bigger disaster as it has been.

...and I'm disagreeing with that assessment. The story of Halo and the story of Destiny 2 are apples and lawn furniture. Halo was the story of this almost messianic figure (The Master Chief) who was single-handedly saving humanity from extinction in the backdrop of these epic events that are hundreds of thousands of years in scope. So the style of music that he wrote was appropriate. It was also appropriate for Destiny 1, because there were many of the same elements to the story that was (trying) to be told in Destiny1. Destiny 2, OTOH, is different. The story that it is telling is not only a HUMAN scale story...it is an INTIMATE one....and that transition is one that many people just don't "get". Just like they are not "getting" the shift that The Last Jedi has made with the Star Wars franchise. So they don't LIKE it, because it doesn't meet their expectations. But their expectations are out of alignment with the story that is being told. Destiny 2 is a story about What it Means to be a Guardian. What is The Light...and what is the legitimate use of individual power. Its a story of failure....individual sacrifice...and redemption. It is about why people FIGHT...and why they risk EVERYTHING for other people. And the answers are NEVER what society TELLS you they are. They are always very personal. Very intimate...and are found in the quite times and the quite spaces. So the dramatic, anethemic compositional style that O'Donnell brought to Halo and to Destiny 1 would have been THOROUGHLY inappropriate to Destiny 2. I'm sure that O'Donnell---as skilled as he is---would have recognized this himself...and would have composed a very different kind of music than he did for the previous Bungie games. But so did the composer for this game...who is JUST as good. He wrote the music that the story NEEDED...and the fact that it doesnt' jump out and call attention to itself in this setting is evidence that it is doing it job WELL.