I’m also very mixed on it, I’m a huge fan of Halo 4’s campaign and 5’s multiplayer but they also ship things that never would have passed Bungie’s quality filter. Generally I prefer how confident 343 was for Halo 4 than this inferiority complex toward Bungie that developed since starting Halo 5 which has only grown through Infinite-CE.

Like the art is solid but the voice acting and cutscene directing is pretty shocking at times, Reddit hasn’t caught up to it but most of the “new” stuff from the cutscenes are pulled 1-to-1 from original storyboards from Halo CE so it’s all stuff that was literally cut because it messed with the pacing or was abbreviated so it didn’t overexplain things. The storytelling literally feels amateurish because they’re undoing the professional editing work that Bungie did (and that they themselves nailed with Halo 4). Also there’s weird gaps like they cut the scene of the escape pod shooting out from the Autumn - it just cuts to the pod outside several miles away instead.

My impression is the studio is in shambles and can still execute on some things but has zero morale on others. Imo the game was just released before it was ready, it needed one more pass for the VA performances, performance, and small but important details for gameplay. For example the wonky plasma pistol charged shots (half-charged shots no longer exist) and no enemy stun effect from the plasma rifle is really messing with my legendary playthrough. Some fundamental things like the Magnum aim assist trying to shoot a jackals head through their shield rather than their hand, you can shoot directly at their exposed palms then see the bullet tracer curve towards their heads and bounce off their shield lol.

Marathon has really good DLSS too so it’s a jumpscare going from a crystal clear game to UE5 temporal artifact city