I’ve been specifically playing Abandoned and Solace (Monolith too) to get used to all the clutter and poor sight lines. So yes I get where you’re coming from, and I partially agree. The wonky sight lines can be irritating, but it’s something that you can work around if you have good positioning. Problem is, positioning is a lot harder to learn than just being a good shot - but neither one can replace the other at higher levels of play. So if you have the tactics, positioning and etc down, but you’re only average at aiming you won’t do well. Same goes for if you’re a crack shot, but are tactically limited and always get caught out of position. Problem is that at lower levels of play the expert marksmanship kind of overshadows the lack of tactics -in a 1v1 scenario someone that always lands a DMR 5-shot or a sniper headshot is going to wreck someone who takes 6 shots 50% of the time but is more knowledgeable about map control/teamwork.
It’s kind of a double edged sword in that regard as well, for keeping the “casuals” interested in the game. Recently my squad dipped out of PT to hang out in my barracks room, and we took turns playing some H4 online. All of them were guys who play CoD - a lot in one guys case. They walked away from my room with a net of a whopping 0 kills and probably 45 deaths.
Why? Because they had absolutely zero tactics - all of them just ran forward. One of the three actually even stopped moving every time he’d zoom in and start firing, ala CoD. They also couldn’t hit people consistently. They almost immediately moved away from my BR loadout because it wasn’t automatic, and couldn’t sustain fire on people for long enough to kill them using the AR. They’d hit them a few times, miss, then die. Then -Yoink- that it was -Yoink- that no one was dying - because CoD has trained them that 3 rounds from an automatic should drop people instantly. Where they get rewarded for just rushing forward and spamming an automatic or a shotgun, or snap-to ADS’ing.
A game where they /have/ to move and fire at the same time, at a target that’s also strafing/jumping/dodging, land multiple shots on said target, use grenades as more than a spamming insta-kill, and deal with things like AA’s… it’s too complex for them. Having to know when to hold position or fall back rather than advance, know when and how to cover your teammates, know how to control a map… it’s too complex for them. So the average “casual”, and a lot of the wanna-be “e-pros” (the kind that make CoD frag montages, and think they’re the best thing since sliced bread, but have never been to a single pro event, had more than 5 viewers in their stream, or played against any actual pros) all run off from it because they do poorly for not being able to master one or both of the essentials for success.
That and CoD being across all platforms is the reason I could almost guarantee that Halo will never be the “King” of the console FPS again. Though to me, no matter how much stuff they try to stick in that was inspired by CoD, it’s still going to be a completely different gaming paradigm. The way the game plays and feels is totally different, regardless of it having custom loadouts and ordnance call ins now. Which is why I’d still consider Halo the more “competitive” friendly franchise. No matter how much magnetism, aim assist, randomness and etc that there is (even though the last bit is always weeded out with competitive game modes), it’s still a much more complex game than CoD… Because tactics actually mean something, and being a God-tier sharp shooter won’t get you crap in Halo if you’re getting 2v1’d or 3v2’d because the other team has better organization, awareness and map control.
On a side note more appropriate to your original point; some of my favorite Halo maps are from CE, and had a little clutter - but a lot of open spaces with some cover that usually doubled as a way to move from one place to another. Hang 'em High, Wizard, Derelict, Damnation. However, none of them had anything quite like the level of clutter on the previously mentioned H4 maps. Getting caught on a stupid piece of clutter or a door frame while trying to strafe or retreat is annoying as crap.