First off, Spartan Ops needs to be made available to XBox Live Silver members. They already can’t enjoy the fantastic multiplayer experience; there is no point in taking away the co-op experience that they could enjoy with Firefight in past Halos.
Speaking of Firefight, at least one mission in each episode should be survival-based, akin to Firefight levels that a lot of the Halo Nation miss. Of course there could be some optional/secondary objectives that could make the coming waves easier, such as activating AA guns or neutralizing key Covenant/Promethean equipment.
Skulls should be able to be activated when outside of SPOPS matchmaking. And there should be a scoring system to give it a more “arcadey” feel.
Personal ordnance should appear in SPOPS. Just like in multiplayer, after you get a certain amount of points, you can call in weapons, powereups, equipment, etc.
The missions also need the traditional “sandbox” feel Halo is known for. Ep 1 Ch 1 of SPOPs was perfect; you were given several tools, and you were told to complete the objectives in whichever order you choose in a wide, open space. Most importantly, the missions need variety. Let’s have some missions where you have to be stealthy, or some Warthog escape missions.
No infinite lives. This just takes away the challenge. We need a co-op experience where we actually need to work as a team. The infinite lives just encourages people to rush forward recklessly, kill a few enemies, die, respawn, and repeat.
I wouldn’t advocate that every chapter needs at least one “survival” chapter. That could make them too old, too fast. But it does need a greater variety of mission types beyond “go here and kill everything that moves.” VIP escorts (a VIP that is well protected (say, in a shielded heavily armored APC/vehicle or the like as Virgil was in ODST, so as to avoid the dreaded “Escort Level from Hell” problem), a couple of airborne/flying stages here and there wouldn’t hurt either. And for God’s sake, more map variety. I swear, if I have to visit “Lockdown” or “Sniper Alley” or Compound or any one of the other recycled seemingly once every chapter maps, I’m going to go nuts.
It also wouldn’t hurt for it to have characters that are actually likeable. Palmer’s a gigantic, overly aggressive, jerk and a moral coward, Hoya and DeMarco are morons, and the rest of Majestic (aside from Thorne) are so paper-thin as far as characterization is concerned that I can’t even recall a single ‘unique’ trait from either of them.
SPOPS doesn’t suck, there’s just a lot of room for improvement.
No more than Firefight did. It’s problem is that it’s much like a poor man’s campaign, without a lot of compelling writing or likeable characters beyond Halsey, Lasky, and Roland (none of whom have a direct impact on much of what Crimson’s doing). Crimson (or whoever takes their place) needs to be more involved, even something as simple as making it like Noble Six would be a vast improvement.
It also needs to be more fun. The game operates much like the old-school shooters, like Doom, Quake, Serious Sam and the older Duke Nukem games, i.e. the monster/alien spam sandwich in which the PC(s) blast the snot out of nigh-endless hordes. Where that worked in those games was a variety of fun innovative weapons, whereas Halo has about forty flavors of assault rifles and shotguns and not much else. Contrast this with say, the shrink/freeze rays from the earlier Duke games, F.E.A.R.'s rocket launcher (a burst launching micro-missile system with a magazine fed launcher), or other creative, innovative weapon systems.
In sum: better writing, more engaging characters, better stage, vehicle, and weapon variety, and you’d have a winner. A greater variety of enemies wouldn’t hurt either.