Halo 4 is full of satisfying gameplay. It maintains the Halo form-language, but drastically changes the basic mindset.
In today's Halo 4, the uncomfortable human collective is described as strong and dominant, and can command Master Chief: "At Ease!", treating him as a subordinate member of a hierarchical collective, which is absolutely horrendous!
Once a human commander tries to aggressively order Master Chief something. Master Chief says: "No!" Later, the subordination comes naturally. (This is like a shrink's effort to change the mind of the player.) This pattern isn't new: In old games, you were free, making your own decisions, being a goodhearted hero; in later ones there can be NPCs who dominate you, even force you to be evil. [1]
The social culture of 343 Industries is obviously opposite to Bungie's. 343 Ind. removes all independence from the collective. The transformation could be completed in Halo 5 by discarding Cortana, replacing her with the marine's central command, and thus turning the mindset completely upside-down. Halo 4 lays the ground for such changes. Will I want to play Halo 5 if that happens?
What would the ultimate Halo game look like? Halo 4 is not 'ultimate', absolutely not; but it's a nice try. Environments look "Halo-good", sometimes very impressive, and are varied enough; but I miss the beautiful icy landscapes Bungie made. I've no complaints on the weapons.
At last I got to fly a Pelican! But they failed to make it "feel big" when flying. This relates to Halo's inherited shortcoming, from the very first Halo: All vehicles are piloted in "Mario View" (i.e. 3:rd person view, 3PV). A "big feel" requires 1:st person view (1PV). How I'd love to see what it looks like from within the cockpit of a Warthog (with a working instrument panel)! I want to see, in km/h, how fast I'm driving.
I'm having great fun with Halo 4; it's a very competently made game (putting aside the Halo heritage). Sadly, though, Halo 4 is going down "the Luciferian path" we've come to see in movies and games during later decades: From good, free, individualistic to evil, hierarchical, collectivistic. An ancient evil awakens indeed.
Note:
[1] An older Star Wars game had Kyle Katarn, the free good guy hero; but the modern version of a Star Wars game had you accept being evil under Darth Vader. Or compare older military shooters, like the first Ghost Recon, with good heroes, you are free to make all decisions, to later shooters where NPC commanders tell you what to do, even torture. The "good guys torture" element is not acceptable. These are components of mind control, to change our personalities and culture, to make us accept less freedom, and more collectivism. As soon as movies and games go mainstream popular, you start noticing these changes. Who's behind this? Well, people who reach to power positions in society, report discovering a "hidden hand" of control and manipulation. It's said to be really scary. John F Kennedy held a speech about it in 1961; 2 years later, he's dead. Ike Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, who might not be satisfied with owning and controlling a lot, but wants to own and control it all, which translates to a fascist, totalitarian police state. We've seen some worrying tendencies in that direction in the US lately.
I know a guy who bought a firewall, and then installed his own software. Soon he started to get mail from the FBI, demanding that he reinstalled the original software, the one with backdoors. All companies have to make backdoors in their consumer electronics: Apple, IBM, HP, you name it, they do it, if not voluntarily then by brute force. This exemplifies how the "not always so invisible hand" makes companies go along with an agenda. And media are an important tool. I know who, why, how; and it disturbs me greatly when "they" mess with my favorite games.