The Halo franchise continues to lack personality.
Halo 2 has two basic modes, single player and multi. If you're sane you will mainly be playing multi in this mess of a game. The single player is both redundant and mundane. It's also very short and doesn't wrap anything up with it's incredibly confusing story. Basically, the prophets want to destroy every race in the Halo universe. Their reason? Probably because they are bored. The single player doesn't go into immense detail on anything and will probably leave you very annoyed and confused. It's also a very short mode, almost makes me wonder why they even tried to make another single player adventure out of Halo.
The multiplayer in Halo is kind of fun when it's at its best. There are a lot of different modes and they are all well implemented. The biggest problem is how sluggish Halo really is. Your character IS going to move slow whether you like it or not, and if someone starts shooting you before you see them, it's a frivolous cause to try killing them. At least in games like Goldeneye if you get shot you can speed behind a corner and take aim. There are a lot of levels in Halo 2 to keep you busy, and a lot of the levels actually look great. Beautiful beaches, bases and space constructions may just leave you in awe.
Halo 2 looks fantastic. Especially for it's time. Bungie has a way of presenting their games with a, this is our universe attitude, and no one can mimic it. This science fiction beauty is a game with it's own identity. The armor of a spartan may seem generic, but yet it's so distinctive when you see 16 of them blowing each other away in their colorful steel. The enemies look amazing and have more personality than Master Chief as they taunt you on the battlefield but stop as soon as you start pumping them up with lead and their blue and green blood diverges their bodies. Really beautiful.
Bungie may not know how to do Halo's gameplay mechanics right, but they do know how to implement the right music at the right time. Halo 2 is filled to the brim with awesome guitar riffs, beats and is often even an orchestral masterpiece. End of story.
I think Halo 2 could have been something better. It really excels at some things, but not the thing that matters most, and that's being fun. Halo 2's sluggish gameplay will make you wonder how everything else can be so good and not the key ingredient.