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Gettin' all Herodotean up in here!
I like the overall way that it ended, but there are a lot of things I would have changed:
First off, I would have liked it better if the environment was different. The area Six is in has no real edges or sides, enemies are just pouring in from all sides. There's not any really defensive positions. You have to be on offense the whole time or you're toast. Not to mention the fact that your visibility is low from the dust in the air, which will only grow worse as the fight grows more intense. The open environments means that your back is completely vulnerable, 100% of the time. The only elevated position is only elevated by slightly more than your jumping height, which means that it's still easily within the effective and accurate range of every weapon in the Covenant arsenal, even the really small and really inaccurate ones. Never mind the fact that that same elevated position is TINY and completely exposed, meaning that it's an abominable location to try and pick people off from and you can't hide from people trying to pick you off.
In short, the place that Six and the many, MANY dead Spartans littered around the final map chose as the location for their final stand was probably the worst location on the entire surface of Reach for a last stand. Given the fact that every Spartan had enough training to figure this out, it's blatantly unrealistic and stupid for the final level to be here.
Location-wise, knowing that this was almost certainly going to be their last day, every single one of these Spartans would have made a VERY different choice for a last stand. The last level should have been Thermopylae. Imagine it, this really narrow strip of land with only one way in. Your visibility is great, and you don't have to watch your back. Just shooting fish in a barrel for as long as you can. That's the kind of position a Spartan would pick; easy to defend, but hard as hell to crack.
Second;
He should have been guarding something. Somewhere, somebody confused "Stone cold badass" with "tactical moron." In the final level, Six has apparently made his peace with his God (most likely Shiva) and is facing his certain doom... stupidly. Six isn't defending anything at his location. There's nothing there to protect. So despite the fact that he's not waiting on his knees to be executed, Six has essentially given up. Instead of doing what he should do, which would be to get to a more defensible position by carving a bloody swath of destruction the likes of which hasn't been seen since Sherman burned Georgia to the ground, Six apparently decided that it would be a much better plan to defend one of the most indefensible positions in video game history. So did all those other Spartans that he promptly cannibalizes gear from. There's nothing to guard, so instead of doing the smart thing, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE SPARTANS defied every instinct that their years of training drilled into them to guard... a completely tactically worthless stick, apparently. The last level should have been a generator defense game within the campaign. A much larger, more hardcore generator than in multiplayer, to be sure, but a generator. Because without something to protect, the fact that the Spartans decided to stick to one location at all is just ridiculous. They can EASILY murder their way through the streets of a city for days or weeks, if not months or years. Or through thick forests. Reach has a lot of those, too. There's no way that Spartans would have simply picked a place and stayed there for no reason, because they stand more of a chance if they keep moving.
Which brings me to my third point:
He shouldn't have been alone to start out with. When the level opens, the map is strewn with dozens of Spartan corpses, with Six still chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool. HOW?! Someone please explain to me how there's a bunch of dead Spartans and yet Six is still fine, hanging out on that same stupid tower? Not even a friggin' scratch? SHENANIGANS, I SAY! Look at it logically. If all those Spartans were dead, there must have been a crapload of Covenant. If Six is still alive, that crapload must not have killed him yet (canonically, Six is a "him," right? I'm still not sure). Ergo, if all those Spartans are dead and the crapload of Covenant hasn't killed Six yet, he should start the level COMPLETELY surrounded and crapping his pants. Yet somehow, all these Spartans are dead, Six is alive, and there isn't a Covie in sight when we take control. There are only a few solid explanations for this:
1. Six showing up after the Covenant killed the other Spartans is the somewhat implied conclusion. But if the Covenant had already killed the Spartans here before Six got there and left, they wouldn't come back. He's one human, he's behind their wave of destruction, and half the planet's about to be set on fire anyway. If they don't know he's a Spartan (Read: Demon) they'd just ignore him because he's a puny human who can't do jack squat because they own the whole friggin' planet now. If they do know he's a Spartan, they're not going to reinvade an area simply to have tens, hundreds, or possibly even thousands of their soldiers murdered at his hands just for the kill. Tanks, air support, or a star ship-fired plasma torpedo? Maybe. They're not going to reinvade an area they've already left. The level makes no sense if Six was tardy to the party.
2. The second option is little better; during events we didn't see, Six and the other Spartans held off a massive Covenant offensive, but all the Spartans but Six died. The problem here is that it makes no sense when compared to the level itself. You have a set number of waves you're going to throw against a dozen of the galaxy's toughest warriors, but an unlimited amount that you're going to throw at a single one? You've already got almost all of them. The gain of killing Noble Six is not worth all the losses incurred by throwing a whole brigade, division, or corps against him. The Covenant may be bigger than the UNSC, but its ability to absorb losses is not infinite. If they stopped sending troops for a second after killing the other Spartans, it makes no sense that they'd start sending more JUST for Noble Six, especially since there doesn't seem to be a real objective at the location in question.
3. Option three is far more sinister, but also by far the most logical in terms of the scenario presented to us by the last level; there haven't been any Covenant there. The other Spartans (You know, the dead ones) were killed by none other than Noble Six himself. This would explain the locale being so indefensible; Six wasn't setting up for defense or a last stand, he had simply finished killing off a group of Spartans who were at that location for who knows what reason and got caught as the massive wave of Covenant which was meant for that Spartan group crashed into him head on. That explains why there's so much being thrown at him; it's a force that's meant for a dozen Spartans, not one. It also explains the rapid escalation in difficulty, since whoever was ordering the attack knew that some grunts and an elite minor wouldn't cut it and had the ships en route. It also makes sense in terms of Six's place within the UNSC and ONI. During most of the game you're in the chain of command for Noble team, but by the final level Noble team (and probably most of the chain of command) is gone. Ergo, Six's only handler is likely none other than the Halo Universe's most sinister of villains, Colonel Ackerson. Ackerson, as we've already seen over and over and over and over and over and so on, doesn't give even a quarter of a damn what happens to humanity as long as he comes out on top. It's entirely conceivable that Ackerson ordered Six to wipe out this squad of Spartans, either to protect something or even just to make Halsey's Spartans look bad for failing to protect or retrieve or whatever their objective was at that location. Ackerson may have even been aware that Six would probably be roasted by the Covenant in the bargain, tying up a final loose end.
If none of these are right, then the Spartans there really shouldn't be dead. Either they shouldn't be there at all, or they should be alive. I prefer the second.
All of that is a roundabout way of saying: I don't buy the scenario.
SHORT VERSION:
Put the last level in a smart defensive location.
Put an objective there that makes sense. Probably a generator.
Make the Spartans be alive, but able to die off naturally, the same way a player would. You can choose to protect your new allies so you have more support, or have everyone fend for themselves. Obviously, if you last long enough (which probably wouldn't be hard) you should be the last man standing, holding out against a monstrous horde of infantry, and eventually you succumb to death, possibly by detonating the generator or an ammo dump and taking the Covenant with you. Imagine that final cutscene then! The elites finally knock Six down, one's got a sword through Six's chest, but Six flicks the switch and a whole freakin' valley of Covenant gets flash fried. Maybe there's a Covenant ship floating overhead to explain where all the troops are coming from, and it gets tweaked by the blast... right into a mountain, fire pouring out of its twisted, hulking shell as the camera pans down to the image of our helmet, and we leave the game feeling uber-badass, because we just roasted a massive number of Covenant.