It was meant to be revolutionary. Sony's Halo-killer they wanted it to be called. But did it become that? No. It lacked lot of the charm and identity Halo was given. To lot of people this was just another relatively janky military shooter at the time. But was that all due to the artistic design? No. I think the story and especially the main characters played a huge part in the game being considered a bit generic at the time. Templar and Rico are just absolutely dull. Rico is even unbearable according to many of the players. With constant snarky remarks and this certain level of meat-headedness, listening to him can become infuriating quite quickly. And Templar is just, a soldier dude. Like, there's not much to say about him is there. Thankfully, the premise was interesting enough that the sequel could be produced and oh boy was that a banger! But let's talk about that another time.