While I don’t personally mind so much, it’s true that 343i have taken Halo in a bit of a new direction that is absolutely not going to sit well with all of their long term fans. I quite like the balance they have struck with the gameplay in Infinite but that’s just my opinion.
We will never know if the game would have been more popular if it was more like earlier Bungie versions of multiplayers but it’s hard to imagine it could have done much worse from a player retention perspective.