Been a Bungie fan since Pathways Into Darkness. They had their ups and downs with Halo (I have been and always will be sharply critical of Halo 2's letdown of a campaign after the huge buildup of Halo 1, for example)... but overall they were good stewards of the series and took it in good directions, both in campaign and multiplayer. Halo: Reach IMO was a great sendoff. I had really high hopes for Halo 4, but the MP is not at all what Halo used to be, and unleashing the talentless cliché factory that produced Halo 4's campaign has all but buried my interest in Halo's storyline. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bungie fanboy, I completely believed Halo could survive and thrive under new direction. But the new direction Halo got, is not it. Sort of like Alien/Aliens... first two films were magnificent, but then the series got driven off a cliff and hasn't come back. Not only that, but 343 even reached back into Bungie's backyard and took the excellent state Bungie left Reach's multiplayer in (especially Firefight, the Limited version of which had ended up becoming my favorite mode) and just ran a dump truck over it. Sad to say, with the exception of occasionally playing Spartan Ops with friends, Halo is pretty much over for me after Halo 4. What you're saying with regards to the population proves to me that I'm not the only one who felt that way.