Gave into the hype, was not quite as pleased as i thought, but still pleased none the less.
1. Graphics. It had great graphics, the best on the xbox at the time.
2. Gameplay. People had been waiting for a pc style shooter on the xbox for sometime. That no longer stands as a pc style shooter considering the fact Halo is now strictly more of a console style game.
3. Controls. This game was fairly simple to control, and many people could adapt to the xbox controls much better than the pc controls.
So why did i rate it a 8.5?
Well, i like halo, its just not really my style of game. At times, expecially now days, the gameplay seems to get sort of repetitive in the singleplayer, and there is not really a good replay value for this game. When it came out, people never really rated it for its singleplayer anyway though, more for just the multiplayer.