Prepare to drop the expanision
Story - The story in the game consits of you (The Rookie) dropping in with your squad into New Mombasa although while you are dropping something goes wrong and you're knocked out for 6 hours. When you wake up you start looking for the rest of your squad mates. It generally starts off with the tutorial and then starts you off by sending you to your first mission. One of the things about this game is that you are looked for objects in an area which lets you play a flashback of a certain character and retells events that happened in the 6 hours you were uncouncious. The story itself however isnt that long so it does measure up to an expansion as bungie said it would and like every story it does have some boring points but that won't dull the game very much.
Gameplay - I actually like the gameplay in this game a lot better then halo 2 and 3. You have a health bar and you have shields like the first halo and you start taking health damage when you're screen goes red. Unlike spartans you don't have duel wielding and the ability to survive any fall. You now take damage if you fall from a great hight and you dont have that extra jumping ability either. The ODST however aren't ordianry soldiers so your not going to be getting your butt wiped if thats what your thinking, you get certain benefits like the Visor or VISR which brightens areas up and outlines them and other objects helping you out. It actually will blind you in bright daylight however so it gives you an excuse not to use it then. You can stealth through if you wish or rush headlong into a firefight and you also have a silenced smg which i actually like and a silenced auto mag which is like the pistol but silenced and has a scope and i love it 10x more. You can hold more grenades (3 at most of each) and the difficulties to me seem more fair as well as bungie has added in a new easy mode which make the game completly easy to thats only for collecting things or getting acheivments im guessing. The only thing that i really didn't like is say you're in a warthog and you're trying to get away from a place you take damage if the vehicle gets hit, not you and so if on legenday and your driving from a ghost that ghost takes three shots and drops your shields and another four and your dead. I found it easier to hop out of my warthog and let my AI gunner kill them while i hid. I laster longer when i got out of my scorpion as well since the AI i had couldn't die.
Graphics/Audio/Cinematics - Not much to say here accept the cinematics were really well done. At the begining when your dropping to the streets you can actually look out and see quite litterally an army of ODST dropping in.
Multiplayer - This is mainly about firefight, the new game mode that comes with the game. Firefight is mainly just another survival mode where the difficulty increases by the skulls turned on ie. (Black Eye, Iron, etc) A new skull is turned on after each round (5 waves, 15 waves (3 rounds) = 1 set) The game mode is new and fun since it has four player co-op and since the campaign also has four player co-op the multiplayer is pretty much good. However there is no match making system so you have to get your friends online if you want to play but you also get another disk with ODST that contains the whole Halo 3 multiplayer as well as all the maps and forge and theatre so its great if you don't own halo 3 or you can just sell your halo 3 disc if you don't want to play its campaign anymore (im not selling mine).
Reach - Reach beta is supposed to come with ODST however the beta is supposed to be released in 2010.
Overall - I like the game although all together the game i would say should have been priced as an expansion. $20-$30 i'd say and with the maps included i would say $20 for all the maps thats approximatly $40-50 but its up to you to judge if you take my advice or not. Also if you get all the vidmaster acheivments that come with ODST as well as Halo 3 you are able to unlock Recon armor.
Story - 8.5
Gameplay - 9.8
Graphics - 8.8 (They aren't perfect but they are pretty good.)
Multiplayer - 3 (ODST disc only) 8 (Halo 3 multiplayer disc)
Overall - 7.5
Price/Overall (For those who consider the game is worth the price)
I would say no
Price/Game - 8 (with live) 7 (without) (1-10 if game is worth the price)