I have to assume all the glowing reviews are for the multiplayer because the campaign is just short of abysmal. Repetitive environments to the point where I once actually returned to the beginning of a level because I couldn't tell which way was forward,

both the Flood and Covenant get a new late-game enemy in the form of a hyper-agile bullet sponge which is just no fun to fight,

as a result of that grenades are no longer for clearing out infantry but instead for easily one-shotting heavy enemies,

and a final boss that I beat by complete accident. Still don't know how the fight was meant to go. The campaign has problems communicating with the player the whole way through. Like the time you enter a room where you have to kill all the enemies and Cortana says "let's sit this fight out."

Anyway, the story. I think there's a really interesting comparison to be made between Halo 2 (2004) and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002). I mean that in both the positive and negative ways. They both go for a dual-protagonist structure juxtaposing two aspects of the story (interesting! good!), and they both get mired down in the politics of their factions (not inherently bad but poorly executed on both fronts!). I think I would rather take Lucas's hokey dialogue than the grandoise nothingness the Covenant leaders spout.

And speaking of the early 2000s, how about those marines? How about Johnson? I said "factions" in the plural earlier but the humans seem to be pretty unified on everything. How about the Aliens, waging a holy war with their... weapons of mass destruction? Is this a stretch? I don't think it's much of a stretch.

I want to keep going but honestly, the comparison to the Star Wars prequels says enough. About the game sure, but mostly about me.