Halo 3: ODST

I came into this game with low expectations. From the gameplay videos, interviews, previews, and whatever else I saw, it looked like it was going to be Halo 3, but played from a different perspective with a new game mode added to get some more money. 
 
It turns out that's pretty much what I got. To start off, I'd like to point out that I enjoyed Halo greatly. The second wasn't as great, but the multiplayer kept me playing for hours. The third nearly brought me back to the Halo 1 days in terms of singleplayer, but multiplayer is where they excelled. 
 
Now with that said, this game isn't worth $60. Not even $30. I'd say $20 at most. Now me being someone who has bought all the multiplayer map packs, I guess i'd have no use for the multiplayer disc, IE I'm paying twice as much as I should be. For people who haven't bought the map packs but own Halo 3, it's still not worth $60. The only way this game is worth $60 is if you're completely knew to the Halo franchise and haven't played any of the previous games. Then I could see spending $60 on this game as justified.
  
Let's start with the singleplayer. Since i'm quite the experienced shooter, I decided to start out on Heroic just so I could get through the game, and then go back on Legendary for the challenge.
The first thing I noticed when I got in-game was that my grenade throwing was a bit awkward. I realized I didn't have any sort of super suit, but I still didn't understand why they would throw the grenade in such a massive arch. Did this game add a new "NBA" mechanic that I missed in an interview somewhere?
The HUD, like most Halo games, was clean without a lot of cluster, allowing me to see in a (somewhat, this is a HALO game by the way. Zoomed in viewpoints FTL) wide range. I had no problem with the HUD. The in-game menus were also a nice touch. 

It felt like a Halo game at first. Floaty jumping (although not as much, no super spartan amazing suit), crappy auto-aim, awkward point of view, and the same old weapons i've seen for the last 3 installments. But then I decided to crouch.. This is the one thing that I love about the game. You 'bounce' when you crouch walk. Why haven't other games had something like this implemented before? Although it being a Halo game, the most unrealistic game in the universe, having that realistic crouch walking made me happy for a moment.
I couldn't bother trying to understand the story line, as I got annoyed with the flash backs and quickly lost track of what "time" I was in. After finishing the game and reading the basic story line, I'm not impressed. But then again, this is HALO we're talking about. Not exactly known for amazing story lines.  

After my single player experience was finally over, after getting through the repetitive, same old missions that have been done in the last 3 halo games, I decided I would try the new multiplayer game mode 'Fire Fight'. I was somewhat excited for it, but I wasn't very happy when I heard that they were ripping off Horde from Gears of War 2 (and other games from the past. Not about to look those up)

 I enjoyed Horde for what it was. A time consumer for when you get bored of Multiplayer, and want to have a nice, short co-op experience with your buddies. But Bungie decided to hype up fire fight as if it were completely different, new, reinvented, and not just a "time consumer for when you get bored of multiplayer". 
The game mode itself is no different from GoW2s Horde mode, with the addition of Skulls. That's it. If Bungie needs to rely on a ripoff of, basically, a mini-game, then I knew this game wasn't going to be very great.  
 
That is basically all that is in the game. I was expecting it to be about a 6 - 8 hour singleplayer experience, as most shooters are. I was very surprised when I breezed through it in less than 4 hours. 1/4 of that was spent wandering around the city with no idea where to go. Then, you could spend maybe a week at most playing fire fight before you get bored of it. 
 
A short singleplayer experience, with a sloppy rip-off of Horde mode, and the exact same multiplayer as their previous, and to date, best selling game? What's the point? You're paying for a short singleplayer experience with a sloppy rip-off of horde. You already have the Halo 3 disc, who doesn't?
 
In conclusion, Halo 3: ODST is a short, dull game with very few new things, and even fewer new things done well, to keep you interested. For $60, i'd just save it until November and pick up Modern Warfare 2.