How exactly did this game get any amount of praise or recognition? I've seen it mentioned here on multiple occasions and having actually played it can't find anything that makes it worthwhile.
The game was outright stated to have gone for an interesting film noir setting for the main character, wandering around a rainswept city alone looking for clues. What sounds good in theory ends up being terribly executed; the city itself is immensely samey and offers no rewards for exploring since there's nothing to do or look at, besides get into piecemeal firefights that are actually best avoided. There's a single data trail to follow for a civilian subplot, but I didn't find the story too interesting and it rewards you with weapon caches you don't need since combat is so sporadic. Dumber still is how the "detective" aspect is worked in: the Rookie literally picks up random bits of discarded gear that generates flashbacks to events that he couldn't have possible known about or deduced, before moving on. It's like the idea was to have him slowly piece together where the rest of his team ended up, but comes across as a lost soldier wandering about aimlessly until he stumbles across the main objective by accident.
Even if a strange FPS noir feel was actually achieved, this would've been destroyed by the godawful flashback laced plot with some of the worst dialogue I've ever sat through. The entire story is a cartoon, from the battles, to the one-liners, and even to the strangely exaggerated animations. It comes across like a Halo fanfic written by 10 year olds, which is incredibly jarring considering how straight the city wander sections are played. People here specifically have mentioned that they enjoyed the game's characters. How the hell can you when they're all pieces of cardboard with five lines of action movie cheese each? Literally the only individual I found interesting was the nuggy little engineer Vergil, which says something about the cast because he doesn't even speak.
One could argue that none of this matters since Halo's story is mediocre anyway, but it's pretty much the only thing to look at because the gameplay is boring as shit. Combat offers even less interest compared to Halo 3 since there are actually fewer enemy types, although they might not have been able to show everything off anyway considering how short the campaign was. The city wandering with Rookie and an interactive map felt like wasted potential since the place is so empty, while the more actiony flashbacks are confined to really linear arenas like other Halo games.
I will admit that part of me was expecting something like Medal of Honor: Airborne, with multiple planetfalls and less attempts at quiet exploration, but even holding the barest of expectations doesn't fix this total waste of a game. It's filler, a half-assed idea rushed to completion to fill the gap between Halo 3 and Reach. Why does anyone give a shit about it?
