Halo: Reach was the last straw for Bungie, and sadly the attempt at setting the bar high was a few inches off.-SPOILERS-
Let me just start off here; I am a big fan of the Halo Series. Halo was the reason my father got me an Xbox back in the day, and is what overall got me into gaming. That said I will not allow personal bias to get in the way of the truth, and the truth is:
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Story
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You play as a new member of the squad Noble Team, known only as Noble 6. This character is in essence, you. (Your spartan use you in multiplayer aswell as firefight is the same you will use in the single-player.) This is a prequel, so no Master Chief here. The Covenant threat has reached a new high and finally landed on the home of the Spartans. Unfortunately it gets overrun and all the population gets exterminated. Oops, too many spoilers? I think not, lets go further. Your squad is basically a cast you would see in a sitcom, with one or two slightly likable. Unfortunately they all die in horrific ways, excluding Kat's, which tried too hard to be shocking. It did come as a surprise at first, but at that point I wasn't attached to anyone yet. You also die, but in a way that justifies the name of your squad. Nothing too original here, just very important fetch quests in FPS form with a space battle thrown in to spice things up. For the first play-through this will shake you to the bone if you get attached to characters easily, but otherwise and through later play-throughs you will laugh at your squads deaths, as the majority of them have very sub-par AI. You'll probably get through first time in about 6 or 7 hours, and later harder play-throughs can last up to 11 hours. Not the best in the series, but not something you just toss aside.
4.8/10
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Graphics
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The first time you look at Halo: Reach it looks just like Halo 3 with shinier shading and more detailed models. Look again, it is a whole different engine. No longer is it artistic styling, but technological superiority. The engine here allows some 1 million polys more in the models than Halo 3 did. Everything will spark when shot, and explosions look ultra-sharp. Nothing mind-blowing, but this is the Xbox 360, not a super top-of-the-line gaming PC. Long view distances with hardly any texture pop-ins help this experience feel much more real. The game only runs at around 30 FPS, which may bother some people, but for consoles is fine by me. Good job Bungie, good job.
7/10
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Gameplay
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The series hasn't changed much (save ODST) so these new Armor Abilities, controls and engine may scare off some recent bandwagon jumpers. Thankfully, they work well with a few imbalances. Armor lock(invincibility gained for a few seconds at the cost of mobility) and less soDrop Shield(a deployable destructable bubble shield that keeps fire in or out) are the only real complaints. Although you can choose to ignore armor abilities all together if you want, they help you out greatly and there aren't many multiplayer playlists that don't use them. The controls aren't that different, and Halo 3 veterans can switch to the Recon button layout and get a more familiar experience. The big complaint is the engine. When you fire, there is a movement with your crosshairs, making them bigger, decreasing your chances of hitting your target. You must pace your shots if you don't want to spray all over the place. This has been in the series the whole time but wasn't this noticeable until now. The big downside is someone can be spamming their rifle and hitting you every time while you can be pacing your shots hitting them every time yet not shooting fast enough to kill them first. This is a bit of a problem, but not game breaking. If you have played halo in the past you are getting basically the same gameplay with Armor Abilities and Assassinations, a cool move you can do be meleeing someone in the backing. Much like chainsawing someone in Gears of War, it is for show and you are vulnerable while doing so. Aside from the problems, the Halo formula still stands. Fun with friends and alone.
8.0/10
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Features
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This is where Halo: Reach is worth a buy. The Campaign is fun, but with just that it isn't worth a new games price. Now we get to Matchmaking, Firefight, Forge and Theater. Let's go through in that order. Matchmaking is the same old fun over xbox LIVE you are used to, with a slightly smaller community than other halo games. You can choose between free-for-all, team based, objective based and co-op playlists, all of which have sub-playlists. Everything you want to play here has it's own playlist, making anything available all the time. Firefight is back from ODST and it is improved dramatically. If you didn't catch ODST, firefight pits you against a constantly harder horde of covenant, much like Gears of War 2s Horde and L4Ds survival modes. The customization here is beyond amazing. You can make your own game mode where you have unlimited ammo and the best weapons and face the easiest opponents, or a mode where you get a pistol, 16 shots and a bunch of hard enemies. Good fun with up to three friends over xbox LIVE and system-link or one split-screen. Forge is back from Halo 3, and allows you to make maps however you want. With a huge world to play in, scenic mountains to cramped hangers, there is plenty of room to mess around here. Weather making a map or messing around throwing tanks at your friends this is great fun, and very in-depth. Theater allows you to replay all of your recent games, whether forge, multiplayer, firefight or campaign, in full 3D camera movement, and take screenshots or video. Great for machinima among other things, this and forge combined just begs movie making.
9/10
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Rent or Buy?
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If you like FPS games, and are a halo fan just go and buy it. Otherwise give it a rent, if you like it go for it. Nothing to lose.
Overall: 6.0/10