Incredibly flawed in many regards. The gunplay has good animations and punchy sound design, but the balance of each weapon is all over the place with certain weapons being completely useless for their lack of effectiveness like the Plasma Pistol or Storm Rifle. Enemy design notably suffers when it comes to the new Prometheans who just aren't that much fun to fight against; their teleporting becomes annoying incredibly quickly, their respawn gimmick becomes a frustration, and they lack the sandbox variety of how they approach the player and how the player can deal with them like how the Covenant enemies were designed.

The story itself is all over the place. It is so close to being a highlight for the series by going for a more personal and emotional take on Chief and Cortana's relationship. There's several cutscenes in this game that have some of the best writing and direction I have ever seen in the whole series (everything on the chapter "Composer" and the ending), but it's every single other plot element and detail that drags and pushes that emotional core down. The Forerunners are ruined from their previous mysterious identity from the Bungie titles, revealing way too much way too quickly and creating so many bizarre questions that either have terrible answers or none at all. Halo 4 also makes a sin of having so many plot crucial details and backgrounds for characters being relegated to side material in books and web series outside of the game which should have been an immediate no-go for proper good storytelling.

Halo 4 shows the new team at 343i had potential: when this game is running at its best, like with the chapter "Composer", it shows that there was real talent involved here that had the chance to properly continue this series in a great new direction. But so much of this game feels cluttered and jumbled together, and has very clear signs of development trouble that ruined that spark. And it hurts knowing that Halo 5: Guardians was what directly followed this.