A pleasant surprise. I was going into this game half-thinking that this game was just a side project hastily put together, but is honestly one of my favorite halo games (so far), behind Reach. The gameplay is exactly like 3's, maybe a little bit better, the story was an enjoyable ride for the most part, I love how the story is actually told, characters have personalities*, the music is wonderful and the best in the series, but they especially nailed that atmosphere. Atmosphere isn't a thing I thought about in a Halo game, as its non-existent, but this game does it well. From walking through a rainy, dark, destroyed city while piano keys lightly play in the background, to riding and blasting your way through hordes of enemies in a tank while some spy action movie music strums in the background, but overall great.

I would love to give this game a higher rating in fact, but there's a few flaws holding it back. One of the more major ones is that there's barely any meat on its bones. This game is very short, which a very short but very good game is not at all a bad thing, it just that I wish they'd gone more ambitious. The level design is fine, but I would've liked to seen it expanded more, with more flank areas and better ways to stealth through enemies. I would've liked longer missions to get to know the characters more.

Another thing I didn't like about this game is that you can skip missions. I didn't know that I was doing it at the time, but I completely missed missions 3 and 4 because I thought it would be fun to explore the city more. Turns out its not and ruins the experience a bit.