Okay, I have been a Halo fan since Halo 2, and I love the series, I was very excited for Halo 4,despite all of the negative comments and opinions, I trusted in 343i, I even went to the midnight launch and bought the LE, and drove home trembling.now, I was going to put my explanation in a story format, but I think it would be more efficient to put it into subsections:
Campaign:
Okay, so first I am going to complain about an obvious one, the length: I buy Halo primarily for the single-player experience, as I do with every other game, and when I shell out £60 on a game, I expect the single-player to be ATLEAST 10-12 hours, I managed to complete Halo 4 on Heroic in four hours,twenty three minutes, that, is just unacceptable.
Second, The Story itself was underwhelming and went in a strange direction,unlike what Halo 3,and its terminals were hinting too, and violated the lore, by stating that the Didact was put into the cryptum...with both Didacts already having there fates confirmed,aswell as requiem itself being a stupid concept, if the didact survived the Halo effect in requiem...why wasn't there a mass exodus of the forerunners into requiem? why didn't they use the cryptums?
Another problem is The Spartan IV's and Infinity...HOW? HOW? AND HOW? Humanity at the end of Halo 3 was wrecked, barely coping, only just surviving the war, with below one billion alive on earth, how on earth did they get the funding to create infinity? a ship nearly three miles long! The spartans were pulled outta no where, why do the augs suddenly work on adults now? that was the ENTIRE point of spartans and the reason behind their name too! that was the emotional backstory behind these towering tactical killing machines,and suddenly the UNSC makes a magic serum and pulls the funding for Mjolnir armor out of dark space.
Finally, the covenant, that was complete and UTTER bull-blam!-, at the end of Halo 3, peace was declared,everything came to an end,giving closure, and tying up loose ends, leaving room for master chief to go on his own personal journey, to face his destiny,but NOPE NOPE NOPE, THE ALEONS R BACK TOGETHER!!!!!!!! AND THEY ARE BACK FOR REVENGANCE WITH FULL FUNDING AND NEW EQUIPMENT!!!!11
Prometheans were also boring and tedious to fight and the lack of a didact boss battle soiled the game.
Multiplayer:
Killstreaks, loadouts and instant respawns all features that stopped Halo 4 from being an arena shooter, and forced it to join ranks with the like of Call Of Duty and Battlefield, with unfair advantages and unbalanced spawing, there is nothing more to say about these features,and if you need me to explain why these features don't belong in a Halo game, then you need to get some help that is beyond my abilities,or are to young to the series.
Horrible,just HORRIBLE maps, every one of them looking the same, rocks, forerunner buildings and being too big for anything but Big Team Slayer. And the only decent map,Haven, was just mediocre and boring.
DMR and Boltshot are horribly overpowered,with DMR doing more damage per shot than any other weapon,and the BoltShot being stronger than a power weapon.
Generally the Halo 4 multiplayer is boring and I have not been compelled to return to it, and personally, I think it had potential, but was wasted, like AA's being pickups etc.
Forge is worse than reaches, and is more of a 1.5 rather than a 3.0 with hardly any good forge maps.
Custom games has been severely neutered,with many features that allowed for ingenuitive and imaginative gametypes removed.
Spartan Ops/Firefight:
Firefight in ODST was fun,and only needed a few adjustments,I see no reason for it to be removed,why couldn't spartan ops and firefight both been in?
Spartan Ops' plot is stupid and not compelling at all,and is composed of reused maps, with gameplay consisting of EGGHEADS EGGHEADS,RUN KILL EVERYONE,PRESS BUTTON,KILL EVERYONE,PRESS BUTTON, KILL EVERYONE AND WAIT FOR EVAC.
Death is of no penalty and even on legendary, spartan ops is a cake walk.
In conclusion, I don't think Halo 4 is a BAD game, no I think its mediocre,run of the mill, but I DO think its a bad Halo game, and I hope I'm not the only one who sees this.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I just wanted to get this out of me.