Luminous

Pathetic. Why bother even playing the game?

You could never dual wield power weapons. In Halo 4 - plasma pistol, magnum, maybe needler. Having two boltshots would be ridiculous. Dual wielding takes away your melee and grenades, at least while you are holding the two weapons. Maybe in Halo 5, but I am sure people would just say "343 sucks they just went back to something old" or some criticism like that.

I like Halo 4's soundtrack, but it's not as good as previous Halo games, IMO. I am very much looking forward to Destiny. It's not going to have a subscription fee like WoW.

Agreed. That is my biggest problem with the Boltshot. It shouldn't be in your loadout. I will use it though. If it's getting used on me I am going to use it back.

Everyone beat me to it and they are right, shotgun has always been a one hit kill up close. That is how a lot of bulltrue medals are handed out....shotgun killing the sword.

While Halo 4's multiplayer may be my least favorite of the Halo games, I still enjoy it. I do agree with some of what the OP is saying, but some of it I don't. Mainly weapon variety. The SMG became somewhat useless when Bungie brought back the AR in Halo 3. Yes you could still use it, but it was only useful when dual wielded. AR vs. one SMG - AR would win. As for dual wielding, again I think it is now obsolete. Even in one of their vidocs Bungie says how in Halo 2 spawning with a dual wield weapon changed Halo in some ways. You can't melee or throw grenades while dual wielding so that limits you, IMO. I mean you can, but you drop your left handed weapon and that reduces your firepower. I do miss the needle rifle, but they added the light rifle and brought back the BR and Covenant Carbine. I agree there are too many power weapons and add in the boltshot. In terms of vehicles, besides the lack of a UNSC air vehicle, they can't have a lot of what you mentioned. The hornet or Falcon would be nice to have, one, not both. The transport warthog doesn't serve a purpose, IMO. The Vultures and Grizzlies were only in Halo Wars to my knowledge so they don't fit as well in the FPS games. Spartan Ops might need some more variety, but I really enjoyed Season 1. Being able to have some added story through the cut scenes is great. Playing through the missions can be annoying without friends, but for the most part I played with at least one friend all the time. Only very rarely did I play alone so I had fun with them. I am looking forward to season 2, even if I will be paying for it. I do think the maps are not that great. Some maps are good only for certain game types. Wreckage is only playable in Slayer for example. The Crimson maps overall are not very good. I HATE Meltdown, just don't like it. Exile is unbalanced in Slayer (Gauss in blue spawn). I was able to get the Majestic pack this morning before I left for work. Looking forward to see how they play. In terms of someone having "unlimited" rockets on Dominion. It might just be that they keep getting rockets on a resupply. I know that worked in my favor while holding a base. That might not be a hack. Unless of course they fire more than two without reloading. Halo 4 isn't the best game in the series. Worst? Not sure about that either. Campaign is great, Spartan Ops is fun. Multiplayer has had some real good moments for me, but it is definitely not as good as Halo 3 or Reach, IMO.

I have faith in Bungie. I have little doubt it will be very good.

I'm more of a fan of big maps (vehicles), but I like the look of these. Looking forward to playing on them. Landfall looks great to me.

I am very new here, but I immediately knew Frog was a trusted veteran member of the site. Sad to see you go. I have to admit I would like to know what happened.......not going to ask, but I want to know.

The WW2 part is very cool, but that is where anything really good about him ends.

Yup. As I said, I understand that AI's can be condescending, but at least try not to be so blatantly obnoxious about it.

There are definitely things about Halo 4 I don't like. I also know the popular sentiment is that Reach wasn't good, but I liked it a lot. I can see how people hate armor abilities, but I really didn't think they broke the game. I don't play "competitively" and I am an average player, but I had a great time with Reach. Maybe armor abilities shouldn't have ever been introduced, but they are here so it now remains to be seen where the series goes from here. Maybe a return to the pickups of Halo 3? Series need to evolve. I personally think CoD has been very similar since CoD 4. Yes Treyarch has zombies, but for the most part the games have felt very similar to me. So much so that I already sold BO2. So I don't want every Halo game to be the same. Yes Halo 3 is a great game, but I also thought Reach was a great game (and Halo:CE, 2, ODST). Halo 4 does have problems that should and hopefully will be resolved a bit in Halo 5. I fear that AA will be here to stay, but maybe it should be more like Reach in that it was a set amount of loadouts depending on the gametype. Everyone shouldn't have sprint, IMO. The Boltshot is a ridiculous weapon and I do think the BR should have some better range. I will say that this is not my favorite Halo, but I do really like the campaign and Spartan Ops. There are things that need to be improved, but I am not anywhere near giving up on this series. I will be playing this game for a while. Campaign, Spartan Ops and yes multiplayer.

Try performing a license transfer on your console. It probably shouldn't need to be done, but give it a shot. It is very easy now, you can do it from the dashboard, I can't recall exactly how to do it and I can get to xbox.com at work (blocked). That worked for me, I can use the DLC on both accounts.

I would like to see Assault and BTB as well. I also think there should be an objective playlist for smaller teams (4v4 or 5v5). Assault would be a welcome addition to Halo 4.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Crimson Map pack, but I am looking forward to Majestic, two weeks.

I never said he didn't perform like he was supposed to, well unless you count him admitting he couldn't see things happening on Infinity. Yes Cortana and Serina made bad jokes, but I was never annoyed by any of them. That's the point, it has nothing to do with him not being a female....ridiculous. It has to do with him yelling, even jokingly and he doesn't pull of condescending well. Serina was very good at looking down on people as wrong as that may sound and Cortana does it well also. With such an "advanced mind" he comes off as immature and that is where I was annoyed. Before I started paying attention in Spartan Ops I thought it was one of the Spartans from Majestic - DeMarco. I did like him a bit more in the Ep. 7 cutscene. Maybe I just don't get it/him or I am biased to Cortana and Serina. Even Auntie Dot was less annoying, but she had no personality so you really can't include her in the discussion.

I was never a big fan of the Flood as enemies, but I know they will be back. I was happy not to fight them in ODST, Reach and 4. I am almost done with the second Forerunner book and I will be getting the third. Just from reading them I expect to see the Flood in Halo 5 and if so 6 as well. Nice read from everyone who posted in this thread.

As others have mentioned already, Jun is dead. Although Reach doesn't follow the Fall of Reach novel, the books and games are all canon. In Ghost of Onyx Halsey specifically states her Spartan protector was KIA, so actually Reach does follow the books in some ways. There are definite discrepancies between Halo Reach and The Fall of Reach, mainly with Halsey and how she gets off the planet. On the other hand Noble team could have been taking part in other parts of the fight on the planet. That is just another way to look at it. Bottom line - Jun didn't survive. As for the Arbiter, I would like to see his return, but I am not sure if I want to seem him just as part of your squad or playable as in Halo 2. The one disappointing part of Halo 2's campaign was that the Arbiter never fought humans. I know the story didn't work out that way, but it would have been cool to see him fighting humans for at least a little bit. Anyway......the perfect place for an Arbiter cameo would be a Spartan Ops mission, but I don't think it fits into Halo 4.

Agreed My regular Spartan Ops crew I play with have mentioned how much we don't like Roland numerous times. I like his outfit, but he is by far the most annoying of the AI's. I get the idea of trying to give AI's personality, like Cortana, but listening to him in Spartan Ops makes him sound like an annoying 12 year old. I think he is a failed attempt at making him similar to Cortana.

No, the Fotus armor code should be with your copy of Halo 4 that was included with the console. There are codes inside the game case. I believe it says something like "in game skins, emblems" or something like that.

I have always liked the EOD helmet due to it's obvious similarity to the stormtropper helmet. I don't think a petition needs to be made even if it was possible. That said, I do prefer the look of it in Reach better. I agree the Halo 4 helmets have a very "anime" look to them. Not world shattering or anything, but not my preference. It has ZERO impact on how much I play. I change my armor and colors all the time.

I am just going to address this paragraph. ODST, Halo Wars, Anniversary. Those three, while yes they are playable on Live wouldn't show up in a top list for a few reasons. Halo Wars (lots of fun, IMO) never had a real big online population. It's an RTS on a console and not traditionally something that would do well in terms of online numbers. Yes it has Halo in the title, but what numbers did other RTS games have on the 360? ODST - the multiplayer (not the 2nd disc) only consisted of co-op campaign and Firefight with friends only - no matchmaking so again the numbers wouldn't be nearly has high as a game with a full MP setup. Playing the 2nd disc would just show up as Halo 3 players. Anniversary - the maps were all under Reach's MP so anyone playing the maps included with Anniversary would be included in Reach's numbers. The campaign was max. 2 player co-op. It would be hard to compare those 3 games to CoD games that (although they are yearly releases) all have dedicated FPS multiplayer included with each title. CoD really became big online with COD4, which released the same year as Halo 3. In regard to Halo 4 falling behind. Competition is part of it, but it could be people aren't enjoying the game as much as older titles, sure. Personally I am enjoying the game a lot, but it could be because I usually play with a good group. Good in terms of we all have mics, have played together on Live for a while and are mostly easy going. We are not a "pro group" by any stretch. We all like Halo and so far are liking Halo 4. It doesn't mean we don't have complaints though.

So much to comment on. Lots of valid complaints. I have to go back and play some Halo 3 multiplayer, but I have played Reach very recently. In terms of Halo 4 vs. Reach I still haven't decided which multiplayer game I like better. Campaign wise, it's a toss up. I liked both campaigns a lot. Firefight vs. Spartan Ops.....still unsure, but Ep. 6 was great. I know Season 2 will cost money, but if the quality stays or gets better, it will be worth it. I was not happy when I learned that everyone has sprint, the scoring in MP was changed to a more CoD type and loadouts were added. After playing the game for 2+ months I do think the game is balanced. I still don't like that everyone has sprint and loadouts were better, IMO, in Reach in terms of everyone has access to them at any time. That is what I loved about Halo and hated about CoD. if I am just starting to play a Halo game a few months after release I will have access to all the weapons. Not true in CoD with the loadouts. That has crept its way into Halo. It's not keeping me from playing though, at all. It seems like some of the OP's issues with MP were similar in Reach (no ranking system, active camo, jetpack). Not discounting them, just an observation. I do agree that everyone having sprint and loadouts are something that Halo could have done without. I have never really cared too much about rank (mostly because I am at best an average player), but I do see a benefit of having a system like Halo 2 and 3 did. If for no other reason then to have matchmaking work better in terms of matching skill levels. I know that with Reach, Bungie did state that "true skill" was working in the background of matchmaking. Is that true of Halo 4? I also think the voting system needs to be fixed. I didn't like in Reach how people could keep changing their vote, bouncing through the choices until the time ran out. You should be able to at least change your vote once. I would think that is easy to implement. I stated in another thread somewhere that right before Halo 2 was taken offline (early 2010), a friend and I went back to play some games. Halo 2 felt like it was so outdated after playing Halo 3 for 2+ years. Just another observation. I can't comment on the problems with Custom games and Forge. I rarely, if at all, play Custom games and I just don't have the time to use the Forge. So if there are complaints there I am sure they are valid.....not that I can dispute them. LOL. I don't understand how theater isn't usable in Spartan Ops and campaign, not to mention limiting it to just one person (although Reach already did that). As for Spartan Ops, there are five maps a week you can play in matchmaking. However any released episode can be played at any time either solo or with someone on your friend list. You won't get near the same amount of XP, but it does allow you to play them all. I really like Spartan Ops, especially because there is more story for us to digest. Is Halo 4 perfect? Not at all, but no Halo game is, IMO. I will say I think Halo 4 is a very good game that could use a few fixes. Games evolve as a series moves along. Not all of the changes are good or work well, but a lot do. As for Halo dying? I don't think so, but 343i needs to keep evolving the game. Listening to the community is a part of that. I would like Halo 5 to maybe skew a little more towards older Halo games as opposed to more CoD type changes if I had to pick. Still the game needs to move forward.....hopefully we, as a community, will enjoy the progress.

There could be a great spinoff with the Arbiter. It could cover the rest of the war between the Elites and the rest of the Covenant, the Civil War on Sanghelios (I hope that wasn't a spoiler, but how do you think you end up fighting Elites in Halo 4?), etc. I liked playing as him in Halo 2 (although I wanted to see him fighting some humans). In Halo 3 you only played as him in co-op as player 2.

What story line in Reach contradicted the other Halo games? Please be specific if you can. I started playing Halo on 11/15/01 - Xbox and Halo:CE launch day. Being an old man there were no "childhood favorites" when it comes to Halo. I played very little Halo:CE multiplayer. Only a handful of games over XBConnect. I wasn't able to get to any real big LAN parties unfortunately. I played countless matches and hours of Halo 2 and yes the ranking system was very good in it, if you really cared about that. For it's time it was (and is) a spectacular game. I loved a lot of the maps, loved the vehicles, etc. However after playing Halo 3 for a couple of years and going back to Halo 2 (right before they shut down the OG Xbox servers) it felt very outdated. Halo 3's MP was spectacular. Again great maps, I loved the equipment addition, it never unbalanced the game, IMO. I am new to this forum, but I don't understand all the hatred towards Reach. I assume it has a lot to do with Armor Lock and the lack of any real ranking system, but I enjoyed the campaign immensely and really had a good time in Firefight and multiplayer. I guess it's because I am an average player and play to have fun. Yes I like to win my matches, but it doesn't keep me up at night when I lose. I do get heated when I play, but at the end of the day it's just a game. So far I am really enjoying Halo 4. I wasn't happy with the COD additions (loadouts, scoring in MP), but the gameplay is Halo. Is it my favorite Halo? Not sure, I love all the games (including ODST). I notice plenty of things I don't like while playing, but the overall package of the games outweighs all the problems. I am a huge Halo fan. I have just about all the books, graphic novels, special edition controllers and consoles. I eat it up, but I guess I never took the multiplayer that seriously. Again it could be that I am an average and older player. Bah.....that was all rambling. Bottom line I love the Halo series and I don't think it is in decline. Now I could be wrong and the next two games might be the end, but I highly doubt it.