Disagree. Halo is a great exclusive. GOW is the joke. The story is one of the stupidest I've had the displeasure of playing. The multiplayer isn't that bad, but still...

Correction: Halo WAS a great exclusive when it was still made by Bungie and EVERY Halo game they made (with the exception of the unique ODST) not only offered something new and well-polished to players, but expanded on ALL the features of previous games. Now, Halo is just another generic FPS in space that happens to star the protagonist from some GOOD games that Bungie made. Without Bungie, Halo is just an empty shell of a franchise getting milked for whatever money Microsoft can wring from what remains of its fanbase.

You kidding me? The Post-War Halo Universe is a joke, especially what they've done with once great characters like Halsey. Halo 4 proved the point that it is a shadow of its former self.

In your opinion, yes. I, frankly, disagree with you. Halsey was seen a certain way because she was seen through the eyes of the Spartans; they've added depth to her. The Forerunner stories are great, Halo 4 had a terrific storyline that was a hundred times better told than the original Halos. It developed characters, it used actual story elements that Bungie so blatantly disregarded, which could have easily made the story much better. So yeah, sorry, I disagree.

Halo 4 may have been great fan service to the people who read all the books and played all the games AND read up on every little bit of Halo Universe lore, but they did so at the cost of accessibility for the rest of us. I've been a HUGE Halo fan since the first game. I've played and currently own EVERY Halo-titled game that's ever come out (except anniversary) and I've spent a great deal of time reading up on Halopedia in my time because I enjoy the universe. But I didn't read the terminals in Halo 3, I didn't watch any of the direct-to-video animated shows, and I didn't read the books, and for that, Halo 4 punishes me with a setting and characters that are for the most part alien to me. After so many years of devotion to the Halo brand, I thought Halo 4's inaccessible campaign was a large betrayal.

You act as if there hasn't been any explaining going on or anything. If you go through the game, they make mention of reasons for things that people don't seem to understand. It was not a betrayal by any means. You have to dig deeper in the game and actually pay attention to what the people are saying rather than simply running around like a zombie. If you don't listen, you're not going to understand the story.

I WAS listening. To every cutscene, with subtitles on, and paying close attention to the things characters were saying. I found the Didact's speeches confusing because of the cryptic and metaphoric language he used, and the same goes for the forerunner woman that Master Chief meets later in the campaign. Hell, when the Didact first showed up, I not only had NO idea who he was, but I had no idea why he was the badguy or how Cortana suddenly came up with a name for him... or for that matter how she suddenly came up with the name for the Covenant Lich aircraft near the end of the campaign. And because I was confused, I didn't understand the gravity of the plot or the weight behind my actions in the game, and so the campaign ultimately felt very lackluster to me, which was a major disappointment. I'm no casual Halo gamer, I've been a pretty devoted fan of these games for over a decade. I loved following Sadie's story in ODST and watching Reach's cutscenes over and over again for the development of the characters there. But Halo 4's plot was just inaccessible to me, despite my best efforts to understand it.