While certain changes may alienate series fans, Halo 4 still emerges as a top of the line shooter.
I'll start talking about the part of the series that originally got me hooked way back in the Halo Combat evolved days, the campaign. Without giving away too much you wake up as master chief several years after the conclusions of Halo 3, you soon encounter a familiar enemy in the covenant, albeit minus the flying bugs and brutes, and then find a new, more challenging enemy, the Prometheans. Series fans will be pleased to see that the gameplay mechanics are largely unchanged, and most of the old and new weapons will feel familiar. While the campaign is fun, and has some cool moments such as finally getting to fly a pelican, and the flying scene, which was an awesomely remade version of Star Fox for the SNES, overall I wasn't happy. For one, the story bothered me. The other halo games were about the story of survival of the human race which was mirrored in the campaign with you facing impossible odds with only the help of incompetent marines and Sergeant Johnson. While this campaign still has you facing hordes of enemies, the story seemed entirely focused on the relationship between you and Cortana. It was ok, and to be honest, they did do a good job developing that aspect of the story such as chief's alienation from humanity as a whole, but if 343 really thinks that the average fan, or in my case the borderline hardcore fan is buying halo 4 to watch an awkward love story play out between Chief and Cortana, they are seriously mistaken. I also felt that the objectives and missions were more hollow and meaningless than in previous games. It seemed like so many times the objective was to destroy 3 generators located in a triangle with each one playing out exactly the same, or defend this objective for a certain amount of time, whereas in the older games the campaign missions were more about traveling across vast diverse expanses littered with unique map designs, weapons, and enemies., not to mention awesome boss fights such as fighting the prophet of regret and Tartarus. This campaign just felt more repetitive and less inspiring. I also have to mention that legendary was a huge disappointment. I have every game solo on legendary minus ODST, and this one was far and away the easiest, and didn't even hold a candle compared to Halo 2. Maybe I'm just getting old. Also what was up with the final interactive cinematic where you fight the "enemy". The whole time I was thinking "haha very funny, when's Captain Price going to jump out and start wrestling with this thing?"
Anyway, what Halo has really become popular for is the multiplayer. I have to admit they got several things right when it comes to multiplayer. For one the ordinance system works very nicely as it allows all players access to good weapons and bonuses, not just those who know where they spawn and camp those areas. I also feel that they made the equipment much more fair and balanced as compared with Halo: Reach. For one, they eliminated the armor lock, (a moment of silence to give thanks and praise), and the perks they added/kept are much more fair and balanced. Another small thing that I felt went a long way was having both the battle rifle and dmr as playable weapons. It was a smart move that allows them to appeal to series fans new and old. Along those lines, I was very happy with the added weapons, and felt that was one of the areas where they actually did better than Bungie. The sticky detonator is awesome, just a more fair rocket, the fast firing machine gun is a great weapon at close ranges and will feel natural to assault rifle fans, and the railgun is like an anti personnel Spartan laser, in other words awesome.
There were some aspects of multiplayer that I'm not as enthusiastic about. For one, it seemed to me like they skimped on the maps. While there are different maps for different gametypes depending on the amount of players, there are only like 5 maps used in the regular rotation of team slayer, and only about 3 ever get played. That would be ok, if it weren't for the fact that there already was a released purhcaseble DLC with new maps. At least try to make it look like you aren't extorting money out of your fans, although I don't know if this was 343 or Microsoft's doing. I also am a little irked by the fact that you can choose your starting weapon. In theory it's a cool idea along with the whole custom class, but at the end of the day 90 percent of players of moderate skill or higher will use dmr/br as their starting weapon. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that dmr/br is an upgrade to the natural assault rifle starting weapon so that it is an advantage to have rather than the norm. After playing for a while, you'll get used to it, but they might has well have just eliminated team slayer, and made it all team slayer pro. Anyway, the guns are pretty balanced, I tend to think it favors the human weapons, but there are tradeoffs between human, covenant, and forerunner, so it really comes down to preference. They also added "combat specializations" which are unlocked upon reaching level 50 and give your Spartan minor abilities or perks in addition to your class perks, but I haven't unlocked those yet.
Overall, still a very fun game, but with a much weaker campaign, and slightly tweaked multiplayer.