I agree with what the OP said, but I still like Spartan Ops. I hope there will be a season 2 that improves on the shortcomings of season 1.
I agree with many of the things said in this thread. Especially the comments on the marines and ODSTs. In Halo canon and previous games, they were effective ground fighters against the Covenant. As Master Chief we frequently teamed up with them, and MC, while obviously ābetterā, still treated them with respect and team members. In SpOps the ODST are completely missing and the marines are (insultingly) a joke.
The SpOps spartans and Roland are all unlikable, although oddly I find Sarah Palmer the best of the bunch.
People who just take away from the OP that heās whining about how hard it is are missing the point. The point is not thatās its too hard, the point is that itās too hard in a cheap, stupid way. Then throwing infinite lives on top of that so you can just corpse hop your way through the mission makes for a very unsatisfying play experience. i.e. as the original OP pointed out, difficulty should not be about memorizing wave structure, difficulty should be about teamwork and strategy to get around the current random enemy wave structure. With real repercussions if you fail (limited life pool).
I still say SpOps as a concept was brilliant, all the more disappointing for itās missed potential. My worry is rather than fixing it and having it fulfill its potential, 343 will call the whole thing a failure not realizing it wasnāt the concept that was the problem, it was the execution. The cut scenes were some of the best cut-scenes Iāve seen in a game - but Iām beginning to suspect thatās part of the problem. Like a big summer blockbuster, all the budget got blown on the best special effects possible, and no one thought to leave enough money for good story, actors, locations, production values, etc.
In my mind, if Spartan Ops had been released with a better story (and I mostly mean characters and AI you didnāt want to punch in the face), a passing glance at Halo canon (the marines/ODST, Spartans who donāt know who Halsey is, etc, etc), random enemy waves, limited life pools, real, differing missions each week, ability to turn on scoring, skulls, medals, etc, a difficulty based off enemy AI working as a team rather than just uber health and sniping FRGs . . . I would have put the Halo 4 disc in my 360, glued the drive shut, and would still be playing it.
As it is I just played each mission once or twice and then quit Halo 4, occasionally haunting the Halo forums hoping to find a hint of information that ODST firefight is coming back either as DLC or in Halo 5, or that the firefight limited life pool, points, medals, customization, etc is being added into SpOps.