I don’t know about “letting anyone down”, I think they made the best Halo game they knew how.
What I’m disappointed with is mostly… well, the lack of Co-Op Support, both online and offline. That was a giant step backwards from Reach. No matchmaking for Campaign. No Firefight. And Spartan Ops is repetitive, cannot be played offline/local splitscreen or system link, and has no customization options (Rocket Launchers and Jetpacks was a lot of fun in Firefight).
But what really annoys me is the arrogance of telling people when they can play what. This goes particularly for Spartan Ops - 343 complains there’s not enough people playing to support adding all available Episodes into Matchmaking, but what do they think people will do if they can only play the same damn thing for one entire week? It also extends somewhat to PvP Playlists - if nobody wants to play something, the playlist will stay empty - so what? Merging or Deleting Game Modes should be considered when the total player count falls below 5000 people, there’s no need for it now.
This is just a principle thing, I don’t know why that gets to me so much, but I really, really hate if someone tells me stuff like "We allow you this week to do this. Nothing else. Why? Because we know better. And You better be grateful. "
From the game itself, I do miss Firefight, and I do most of all miss Invasion. It was in my opinion one of the best modes I ever played, it gave the game a focus, a purpose and diversity. Dominion is too unfocused for my taste, and it’s just the same thing over and over. I just really liked how Invasion had these stages, clear goals, and escalating warfare.
I do commend 343 for making Sprint not an ability (seriously) but something everyone can do, and I hate them for making that “Marathon” Perk for MP - I don’t know what it’s called here, but once I saw that, I had to look through everything just to make sure there was nothing like “Lightweight”, “Commando” and the Tactical Knife available, otherwise I would’ve stopped playing right then and there.
I also really would’ve wished they had integrated a “Grab the Ledge and pull yourself up” mechanic - I know, that was never in the cards, but ever since I played Halo and saw all the jumping (and the jumping, not quite reaching and falling back down, sometimes to death), I wanted to be able to jump somewhere and grab a hold, pull myself up.
Then there’s the thing with the Specializations and people stuck at SR 70 for weeks, now (not to mention that people in Europe had no way to get those without the LE). That above all showed to me that 343 completely underestimated their responsibilities towards the franchise and the players. I don’t begrudge people their pre-order bonuses, or LE bonuses - you pre-order, or pay more, you should get something for it - but the way they handled the Specializations and the SR 70 level cap was just embarrassing.
All in all, I think they made a good game, even a good Halo game, but somewhere along the way I think they forgot to distinguish between what the people want and what THEY think the people want. It’s obvious that Co-Op was never their focus (I mean, really, why would you NOT have Firefight?).
And sadly it’s just as obvious that they truly believe they know what people want better than the people themselves, cutting options, features, game-modes and so on.
One great thing about Halo (up to Reach) were the options you had, and Bungie’s willingness to give you those options and let you play with them. 343, all professed Halo Fans, probably thought they could distill the Halo Experience down to its essentials, but that in itself was the wrong thing to do, since “the Halo Experience” meant so many different things to so many different people. By streamlining it they may have made their personal “Best Halo, ever”, but it comes at the cost of limiting the customers in their options, to use an exaggeration to “force-feed” their vision of what Halo should be, and that kinda backfired - and yes, I will admit that part of the “stream-lining” of the game was most likely to attract other customers from other shooters, but most of those changes I actually like.
I really can’t blame them, though. I mean, come one, if you’re a die-hard, first-generation Halo fan, someone who is utterly convinced he knows what “The Real Halo Experience” is, and you got the chance to make a Halo game, would you not, even if only subconsciously, make the Halo you would like best, and everyone else be -Yoink!-?