blarg, bow chicka wow wow, boomshakalaka,
Halo 3: ODST brought many ideas to the halo table:
stealth
a squad
not being a super-human
free roam
and tried to bring others:
destroyed city, unique and open ended.
night time and rain.
unfortunately a lot of the ideas presented in the trailer didn't happen (rain swept city, avoiding enormous patrols of brutes) due to game engine requirements, or short production time, and many of the ideas that were in the game fell flat. most of my problems are with the portions of the game that happened at night.
1. the city was all-right. I was expecting to be able to go into more buildings, go on the rooftops, and see less copy and pasted sections. this was one of my biggest problems, the city could've been truly unforgettable instead of just good.
2. stealth didn't happen as far as i am concerned. the silenced weapons were cool, but they never did any thing, because the brutes would still be in hearing range, see it, or see you. this can come down to two problems. the dark wasn't dark enough: the dark would normally allow you to sneak around, but it was not emphasised in-game. this might also being due to the VISR not being a great night vision. the other problem is that there is no need to. despite the title of the game, I am still as invincible as ever, so why would I bother sneak around when i can run head on and dominate. I think that these two problems came down to lack of production time.
3. the whole gritty-at-night-pouring-with-rain didn't happen either. there was no visible rain at all. rain would've added atmosphere and provided ambient noise to assist the stealth weaponry. and the game was to light. wasn't dark enough. this is partly due to the orange skybox.
TL:DR what the game delivered was several concepts, most of which were underdeveloped. this is such a shame, because those concepts were fantastic. in ten years i want to see the game remade, with a full 3 year production cycle going, and a full team behind it. its probably not going to happen, but wouldn't it be nice?
[Edited on 12.22.2010 8:08 AM PST]