people say halo is stale to hide their own cognitive dissonance. the same person who complains that every first person shooter is alike hates halo because of how it's different from every other first person shooter.

Lot's of games are stale. Calling out other games on why they're stale doesn't mean the game you're defending is any less stale than the others. "Staleness" of a game differs from person to person. It depends on how overexposed to it they are and how much they can tolerate the same without change. The degree of change required to make it seem less stale also is a factor that depends on the person you're speaking to.   For example I find the most fps games out their today to be stale. Why? I've played too many of them over the past couple years. No amount of damage recalculations, extra perk features, etc. can change the fact that it's still the same fucking style of gameplay that I've grown tired of. The only thing that will get me playing an fps now is if it has some huge amount of artistic creative style to it. Now many others will disagree with that, but does that mean it's not stale for me? No. Some kid might be playing Halo Reach and CoD BO as his first fps so everything seems fresh and exciting to him, or some diehard fan might be so into the series that every little calculation change seems like a huge deal. However, that doesn't mean that the series isn't stale for others.  Now if you're still curious about why Assassin's Creed isn't hit harder for being stale, I can give you my opinion. Even though it's been coming out frequently, people don't look around and see 5+ low quality knock-offs of it's gameplay every year like you do with fps games. The fps genre is too oversaturated in general, which is why you'll find a lot of people calling fps series stale. I can't think of another game at the moment that tries to do exactly the same thing AC does gameplay wise, but this is just off the top of my head.

people say halo is stale to hide their own cognitive dissonance. the same person who complains that every first person shooter is alike hates halo because of how it's different from every other first person shooter.

Lot's of games are stale. Calling out other games on why they're stale doesn't mean the game you're defending is any less stale than the others. "Staleness" of a game differs from person to person. It depends on how overexposed to it they are and how much they can tolerate the same without change. The degree of change required to make it seem less stale also is a factor that depends on the person you're speaking to. 
 
For example I find the most fps games out their today to be stale. Why? I've played too many of them over the past couple years. No amount of damage recalculations, extra perk features, etc. can change the fact that it's still the same fucking style of gameplay that I've grown tired of. The only thing that will get me playing an fps now is if it has some huge amount of artistic creative style to it. Now many others will disagree with that, but does that mean it's not stale for me? No. Some kid might be playing Halo Reach and CoD BO as his first fps so everything seems fresh and exciting to him, or some diehard fan might be so into the series that every little calculation change seems like a huge deal. However, that doesn't mean that the series isn't stale for others.
 
Now if you're still curious about why Assassin's Creed isn't hit harder for being stale, I can give you my opinion. Even though it's been coming out frequently, people don't look around and see 5+ low quality knock-offs of it's gameplay every year like you do with fps games. The fps genre is too oversaturated in general, which is why you'll find a lot of people calling fps series stale. I can't think of another game at the moment that tries to do exactly the same thing AC does gameplay wise, but this is just off the top of my head.

@Sevan said:

every ability has its unique aspects. You can keep jet packing to the top to get to the action quicker and then just be like everyone else, or you can use sprint and be faster than everyone once you are up there. Or use armor lock and get up there slower and have an added level of security. Every ability has ist unique aspects. You sacrifiice getting there faster for having more options once you get there, or vice versa. You pretty much keep choosing to die faster, and then you get mad because you're dying faster. Embrace the variety and stop being the guy who complains whether a game changes or stays the same. And if you dont like that variety, you can play classic or swat. Both allow you to just run and shoot at the same level as everyone else.

You just said every ability is unique, that is exactly what I'm complaining about. It goes against everything Halo is about. Let's face it, Halo is dead. 303 Industries took over the franchise and the new game will probably have some sort of stupid KInect support. I'll be skipping Halo 4 and playing Bungie's new game in place of it (on PS3 I might add).

@Sevan said:

@TorMasturba said:

@Wolverine said:

@Sevan: My problem with Halo is the direction it went down. I was a huge Halo fan in the early days, but Reach destroyed Halo multiplayer for me. The beauty of Halo is that every player starts off exactly equal. With Reach everyone had different special abilities and it just didn't feel like Halo to me.

And do you notice how almost everyone tends to go for the same certain abilities in certain maps?

That map where there's basically 2 walls on a very slim size map that's taller than it is wide, I forget the name. Everybody just ends up using the jetpack ability, me included, because it makes life easier than running up four flights of stairs to reach the action only to die and spawn at the bottom again. The imbalance is what makes these modes suck, if you choose anything other the optimum class for certain maps then you start finding your finger edging towards the on/off button on your console. Imo.

every ability has its unique aspects. You can keep jet packing to the top to get to the action quicker and then just be like everyone else, or you can use sprint and be faster than everyone once you are up there. Or use armor lock and get up there slower and have an added level of security. Every ability has ist unique aspects. You sacrifiice getting there faster for having more options once you get there, or vice versa. You pretty much keep choosing to die faster, and then you get mad because you're dying faster. Embrace the variety and stop being the guy who complains whether a game changes or stays the same. And if you dont like that variety, you can play classic or swat. Both allow you to just run and shoot at the same level as everyone else.

You just said every ability is unique, that is exactly what I'm complaining about. It goes against everything Halo is about. Let's face it, Halo is dead. 303 Industries took over the franchise and the new game will probably have some sort of stupid KInect support. I'll be skipping Halo 4 and playing Bungie's new game in place of it (on PS3 I might add).

@Sevan: That's kind of what I was saying, opinions are subjective. I don't think it's generally perceived that the statement "[Blank] is good" or "[Blank] is bad" applies to general opinion instead of personal opinion though. I can't really imagine the following situation happening:  Guy 1: CoD is good. Guy 2: So you like CoD? Guy 1: What? No. I didn't say anything like that.

Sevan, more than stale it's the fanbase that was getting stale over the years. Half of those people are mere kids (I'm not talking about you in particular so don't take offense, but when Halo 3 came out it was quite insane) that spout nonsense. People have been laughing at these series because it formed what it's called "my first FPS", not because the game was bad (it is not) but because lots of people truly, in a non-troll way believed this was the first FPS to even matter at all. It also invented a concept that doesn't just work well with some team based games: regenerating health. This generated approval from new players, disapproval from old players. Map strategy was displaced, Halo wasn't really that much affected by such feature (although Halo 3 on legendary is a constant "hide behind things, die 300 times trying to shoot something and go forward"), but other games were. Other games that do not take these mechanics the right way. So basically all the hate is based on the fact that Halo changed some FPS franchises to work in different ways. 

There were other things back then that put some people away. Halo games are twitch shooters, but they're not basically the best at it. When this term became popular enough, there were already lots of fast paced shooters. Halo multiplayer, sadly, is not what people would call a fast paced shooter at all. It's floaty, walk speeds are really slow, and overall didn't help that it was being developed mainly for consoles. This changed things.

Call of Duty does not have nearly as many changes as every Halo game does, and I'd say it's being milked at a faster rate. The problem is, Call of Duty is based off those "neat" new features. Which does not work very well. Some people want a twitch shooter to be a twitch shooter, instead of something that pretends to be a serious experience and it's not. It's the same with realistic FPS games. It's a game that it's in between those, and isn't good at any. Doesn't help the fact that the Call of Duty series are running under modified quake 3 engine versions, over and over until they stop selling.

Look, overall Halo series aren't bad. More than half of the extremist fanbase is, lots of new players are, and some mechanics are.

@Sevan: Okay, well firstly I didn't say I preferred CoD, I said I preferred Halo and you've yet to address that issue, but to get to the real point "elephants fly to mars and snort its red dirt" is an objective statement, "Halo is good" is a subjective statement. Likewise if I gave you the objective statement that "chalk is a solid" I could put a piece of chalk in front of you to convince you of my argument, the evidence would show you that it's a solid, but if I gave you the subjective statement that "World of Warcraft is a far better multiplayer experience than Halo: Reach" based on numbers of people who played the multiplayer, it doesn't matter how much WoW I make you play you'd still be able to disagree with me and it would be an entirely valid disagreement. Sales figures aren't a "this is how good this game is" meter, they only indicate how many people were of the opinion that a game was worth the money they paid for it at the time of purchase. The opinion of the majority does not invalidate the opinion of the minority, that's what we have niche games and indie games that are critically acclaimed but don't necessarily sell well.

Cool bro story. And even if you don't realize it, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty receive a lot of hate. I myself dislike Call of Duty because they never improve the campaign.

Your avatar and green name make it a bit difficult to take your post seriously. Also, I dare say that CoD is currently the biggest and most successful franchise, not Halo. And CoD, like Halo, gets tonnes of shit for its failure to truly innovate. However, like Halo, its fans keep buying the games, despite all their bitching and moaning. 
 
And each AC brings significant new innovations to the table. From slight tweaks to existing mechanics, to entirely new mechanics that completely change the way you approach missions, combat and exploration.

Sevan, more than stale it's the fanbase that was getting stale over the years. Half of those people are mere kids (I'm not talking about you in particular so don't take offense, but when Halo 3 came out it was quite insane) that spout nonsense. People have been laughing at these series because it formed what it's called "my first FPS", not because the game was bad (it is not) but because lots of people truly, in a non-troll way believed this was the first FPS to even matter at all. It also invented a concept that doesn't just work well with some team based games: regenerating health. This generated approval from new players, disapproval from old players. Map strategy was displaced, Halo wasn't really that much affected by such feature (although Halo 3 on legendary is a constant "hide behind things, die 300 times trying to shoot something and go forward"), but other games were. Other games that do not take these mechanics the right way. So basically all the hate is based on the fact that Halo changed some FPS franchises to work in different ways. 

There were other things back then that put some people away. Halo games are twitch shooters, but they're not basically the best at it. When this term became popular enough, there were already lots of fast paced shooters. Halo multiplayer, sadly, is not what people would call a fast paced shooter at all. It's floaty, walk speeds are really slow, and overall didn't help that it was being developed mainly for consoles. This changed things.

Call of Duty does not have nearly as many changes as every Halo game does, and I'd say it's being milked at a faster rate. The problem is, Call of Duty is based off those "neat" new features. Which does not work very well. Some people want a twitch shooter to be a twitch shooter, instead of something that pretends to be a serious experience and it's not. It's the same with realistic FPS games. It's a game that it's in between those, and isn't good at any. Doesn't help the fact that the Call of Duty series are running under modified quake 3 engine versions, over and over until they stop selling.

Look, overall Halo series aren't bad. More than half of the extremist fanbase is, lots of new players are, and some mechanics are.

@Sevan said:

no matter what your personal preference or opinion is, those things will always be accurate truths as proved by the collective unit sales, money made, reviews, and consistent demand.

So CSI is a better show than the Wire? Avatar is a better movie than Citizen Kane? By your thinking Halo isn't really that good at all. It has come nowhere near the figures of the other games you mentioned as being poorer in your original post.

Since when is Halo>CoD? Also I don't think your argument holds merit. People DO bitch about CoD, and AC series has consistently been improving, refining and innovating.

And if you couldn't tell by my avatar, I'm a pretty big Halo fan.

I always thought that Halo gets far more hate then it deserves but it was pretty much the biggest franchise in gaming at the time so it was the cool thing to hate on, kinda like nowadays its Call of Duty that gets all the hate. Only thing I never really understood was how people would always groan at a new Halo game as if the franchise was constantly spitting out games when they were only coming out every few years.

@Sevan said:

@Stonyman65 said:

You forgot the part where Halo was never really good in the first place.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go play Quake 3..

lol. your opinion is trumped by sales numbers. I'm pretty sure every itteration of Bungie Halo outsold Quake 3. But it was a damn good game.

Yes, I agree there was probably a less rude way of saying what he said but there are at least two problems with your response. One, the sales figures of Quake 3 and Halo cannot be directly compared fairly, the market for video games has grown massively since the time of Quake. Two, sales numbers don't "trump" opinions. His opinion is no less valid because a lot of other people have chose to buy the game, likewise I prefer Halo to CoD and my opinion is in no way trumped by the fact that CoD is selling more units than Halo, you're trying to compare the objective with the subjective.

Fanboyism is not good mmmmmkay? Unless its PC fanboyism, then you's cool.

@Wolverine said:

@Sevan: My problem with Halo is the direction it went down. I was a huge Halo fan in the early days, but Reach destroyed Halo multiplayer for me. The beauty of Halo is that every player starts off exactly equal. With Reach everyone had different special abilities and it just didn't feel like Halo to me.

And do you notice how almost everyone tends to go for the same certain abilities in certain maps?

That map where there's basically 2 walls on a very slim size map that's taller than it is wide, I forget the name. Everybody just ends up using the jetpack ability, me included, because it makes life easier than running up four flights of stairs to reach the action only to die and spawn at the bottom again. The imbalance is what makes these modes suck, if you choose anything other the optimum class for certain maps then you start finding your finger edging towards the on/off button on your console. Imo.

@Stonyman65 said:

You forgot the part where Halo was never really good in the first place.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go play Quake 3..

lol. your opinion is trumped by sales numbers. I'm pretty sure every itteration of Bungie Halo outsold Quake 3. But it was a damn good game.

@Wolverine said:

@Sevan: My problem with Halo is the direction it went down. I was a huge Halo fan in the early days, but Reach destroyed Halo multiplayer for me. The beauty of Halo is that every player starts off exactly equal. With Reach everyone had different special abilities and it just didn't feel like Halo to me.

And do you notice how almost everyone tends to go for the same certain abilities in certain maps?

That map where there's basically 2 walls on a very slim size map that's taller than it is wide, I forget the name. Everybody just ends up using the jetpack ability, me included, because it makes life easier than running up four flights of stairs to reach the action only to die and spawn at the bottom again. The imbalance is what makes these modes suck, if you choose anything other the optimum class for certain maps then you start finding your finger edging towards the on/off button on your console. Imo.

@Sevan said:

@NickL said:

Mario gameplay is stale. (Classic sidescroller, they are doing interesting things with 3d mario, but even that is becoming more stale with every iteration.)

Assassin's creed hasn't been around long enough to become stale.

COD is stale.

Halo is still stale.

All big franchises are stale, I don't come to them for innovation (and get pleasantly surprised sometimes when they do innovate) I come to them because they are fun to play.

Edit: Halo has always been about humans fighting to stay alive. Oh look, I can oversimplify franchises too.

Stale kind of entails that it is no longer fun to play. Assasins Creed has like 6 instalments in half the time, and it has had less changes altogether than any two consecutive halo game.

I'm probably wrong, in fact I very often am, but imo the change from AC1 to AC2 was extremely dramtic. AC1 was stale out of the gate, the game did a great job of exuding staleness, it was so stale it stank. AC2 was young and fresh and knew all the right people... Maybe I'm going off topic. My original point being that AC1 and AC2 are very different in gameplay design, and whilst AC1 was an innovative in concept it sucked bulls and dragged it's rotting carcass for miles. AC2 was well balanced and could accurately kee us paying attention the whole way through. Major difference in my eyes.

P.S. Sorry that I got lost a bit there.

I don't really like the title to this at all.

I've never thought halo was particularly exciting to begin with. The multiplayer in 3 was pretty cool granted, but I've had to give up on reach. Armour lock, what!?

Halo is a stale franchise. Get at me, bro.

It's important to remember, and compare, the level of abstraction and malleability in a franchise like Halo as compared to games like Mario and even Assassin's Creed.

Mario is abstract enough that even though the series has been around forever, it has gone in so many directions while maintaining quality that it's difficult to accuse it of being stale. Putting aside even the enormous improvements and changes between the different "core" Mario games we still have Mario RPG, Paper Mario, Mario Party, and Mario Kart. These are all top notch titles and yet are completely different from each other. Compare that to the Halo franchise; it has been largely similar among all the titles it's put out, aside from one RTS that was only fairly received and largely forgotten. This is not a crime. The Halo games have been quite good, and there tightly wound and coherent story and universe have thus far necessitated games that follow a similar formula. It is therefore much less abstract than Mario, and so it is difficult to compare them.

Assassin's Creed is very malleable due to it's nature as an action adventure franchise and it's story that allows it the freedom to make large amendments to the gameplay. Weapons, actions, mission types, and mission structure can vary widely between games because open world action games are like empty frames that can be filled with different pieces, or mixed in a different way. It's story also allows it to be placed in different times, with different technology, different characters, and different environments to the point where gameplay can feel fresh in between titles. It must be noted, however, that this franchise is not above being called stale: It is relatively young and is just finishing an arc that began with the second core game. Time will tell if it become rote and predictable or not. Halo is mostly an FPS, and this genre is the most difficult to change while keeping it's core conceits intact. It has also, thus far, had a storyline that has focused on one cast of characters over multiple games, in a period where FPS have started to flood the market and cause people to become tired of the genre in general.

COD is widely regarded as stale, and people are eagerly waiting to see it change and become something different. Or, if they're bitter internet people, they wish only for it's downfall so they can dance on it's corpse.

I am a huge Halo fan as well, and I have most of the games sitting on a shelf next to my console. I am noting this to try and avoid responses tinted with the assumption that I have something against the franchise, so that I can have discussion based only on intellectual principle. I thought it important to note the inherent differences in the above mentioned franchises, because internet people tend to have very one dimensional views on things. For example, the OP sees Mario and AC games come out the seem similar, and therefore are directly comparable to Halo. That is not looking at the larger picture, and I felt it important to note that. Finally, I apologize for my grammar and spelling, as I am sure it is atrocious.

You should read my thread called; "Why you should shut up and not tell people what games to enjoy or not enjoy and just play whatever games you like k?"   It's actually not a thread.  It's just a post.  It's this post in fact.  Read it, learn it, love it.  BTW...I'm a fan of the Halo games, but whatever, don't be a douchebag.

This conversation will be held to the end of time because different people have different opinions about change in video game franchises.  

  Someone like delorean above might only bring forth how out how halo reach added some armor abilities and character customizations and say it's boring and didn't innovate enough (that's not necessarily what you mean delorean, just an example). 
Some one like me will say that they changed TOO MUCH in Reach because they added incremental non-driver-based health to vehicles and buffed weapon damage to vehicles.  The most interesting part of halo multiplayer to me - other than it's special "something in the movement, controls, and pacing - was the well-designed and balanced implementation of vehicles.  In halo 3 and before, vehicles were power weapons, an advantage over other players that generally required some strategy or tool to defeat (also, warthogs and tanks are badass).  But in Reach, all it takes is a couple of people with DMRs (which they SPAWN with) a few sniper shots, or pretty much anything to destroy a TANK.  Vehicles are essentially nerfed, as their counter is as accessible as spamming focus fire from your spawning weapon. 
 
This has COMPLETELY changed the game for me and friends i play with, to the point where I don't play Reach as much as i used to play other halo titles.   Also, different people get more or less out of a game depending on their skill level and how much they put into the game, bla bla bla l2p bla bla bla noob bla bla bla.  Okay /rant 
  

My point is that different people will always see gameplay changes in sequels to franchises differently, and thus there will always be people who criticize and complain about them.  Some people want vast sweeping changes, maybe even a completely different game but with the same storyline, or the opposite.  Other people want it to be the same core experience but with a few tweaks here and there.  Still others just want the same game but with better graphics.   
  
The opinion of whether a franchise is "stale" or "ruined" will differ from person to person.  All aspects of opinions on the internet apply.  Some people shouldn't shut up because they think it's stale, they should shut up because they're being an internet asshat.   
 
(IMO)

I always thought that Halo gets far more hate then it deserves but it was pretty much the biggest franchise in gaming at the time so it was the cool thing to hate on, kinda like nowadays its Call of Duty that gets all the hate. Only thing I never really understood was how people would always groan at a new Halo game as if the franchise was constantly spitting out games when they were only coming out every few years.

This thread plus your user image makes me think you may just be an angry fanboy. I love Halo but it is getting stale. Not really sure why you target Assassin's Creed when the two franchises are nothing alike. I agree that CoD is stale. Hell, I got bored of it after MW2. Halo needs to innovate if it wants to survive. Reach was a good start, though.

I stopped reading when you included 50 paragraphs in your post.

@Sevan said:

@NickL said:

Mario gameplay is stale. (Classic sidescroller, they are doing interesting things with 3d mario, but even that is becoming more stale with every iteration.)

Assassin's creed hasn't been around long enough to become stale.

COD is stale.

Halo is still stale.

All big franchises are stale, I don't come to them for innovation (and get pleasantly surprised sometimes when they do innovate) I come to them because they are fun to play.

Edit: Halo has always been about humans fighting to stay alive. Oh look, I can oversimplify franchises too.

Stale kind of entails that it is no longer fun to play. Assasins Creed has like 6 instalments in half the time, and it has had less changes altogether than any two consecutive halo game.

I see stale as being something that has been around for a while without changing much, not necessarily that it isn't fun anymore. (Based off of the idea of stale food, it has been around too long and probably tastes the same but it has that one little texture difference that everyone hates.)

I don't know. If everyone agrees that stale can't be fun anymore then I guess there are almost no franchises that I see as your idea of stale. (The only games I can immediately think of as stale by this definition are hardcore stealth games, maybe I just love games too much to not get enjoyment out of them. =p)

Assassin's Creed only has 3 installments that matter. I haven't played the other "installments" but from what I understand they are basically ports of the games. That would be equivalent to saying the Halo pc port was another installment of the halo franchise.

And in those 3 major installments, there have been countless changes, not to mention an increased level of polish that wasn't present in previous iterations.

Don't get me wrong, I will still play halo games for months every time a new one is released, but it is definitely stale (by my definition of stale).

It's not a question of stale franchises; it 's a question of jaded gamers, and fanboy fox and grapes syndrome.s Stale goods don't sell well. with certain games, you either like the taste, tire of it or don't care for it at all. Then there's that irrational fanboy thing, but we don't need to go into THAT.

@OP again its very hard to take you serious with all the halo pictures and what not you have. Even if you have played alot of crysis 2 as of late

I always thought that Halo gets far more hate then it deserves but it was pretty much the biggest franchise in gaming at the time so it was the cool thing to hate on, kinda like nowadays its Call of Duty that gets all the hate. Only thing I never really understood was how people would always groan at a new Halo game as if the franchise was constantly spitting out games when they were only coming out every few years.

Halo was mediocre in the first place. To this day I don't see how the hell it blew up the way it did.  So yeah Halo is stale, and your long rant has not changed my opinion on that. Halo 4= lol.

Halo CE: First game of the franchise 
Halo 2: Dual wield guns, multiplayer, no health
Halo 3: Shield orbs and some other powers
Halo 3 ODST: Firefight with no matchmaking, took away dual wielding, added health
Halo Reach: Customize character with some armor plates and a new visor, new abilities like running, still no dual wielding
Halo Anniversary: Will be the same as Halo CE with spankin new graphics
Halo 4: Dual wielding (One can hope), Master Chief, and who knows what else

This thread plus your user image makes me think you may just be an angry fanboy. I love Halo but it is getting stale. Not really sure why you target Assassin's Creed when the two franchises are nothing alike. I agree that CoD is stale. Hell, I got bored of it after MW2. Halo needs to innovate if it wants to survive. Reach was a good start, though.

I stopped reading when you included 50 paragraphs in your post.

@Sevan: Assassin's Creed has 3. Assassin's Creed isn't stale because every game has added new mechanics. AC: 2 added more weapons, an open world, boats, the economic side quest, Assassin's Tombs, and a few Desmond free running side missions. AC: Brotherhood added Borgia towers, Asssassin recruits, multiplayer (Which is great), Leonardo side missions, new weapons, new tools, and an entire training program for free running, combat, and stealth.  AC: Revelations has even more in it.  So from what you have said about Halo, Assassin's Creed isn't stale because of the constant addition of new things.  (I didn't add the two handhelds because I never played them, and most people play the console games)

Generally games with too many frequent sequels get stale. I personally find that Valve, outside of their multiplayer games, tend to shake things up each time. Just look at the difference between Portal 1 and 2. I liked Halo 3 single player and Call of Duty MW2 multiplayer, but I am sick of both franchises now. I am much more interested in Bungies next project. I like that teams like TeamMeat, are not going to just make another Super Meat Boy, they are going to make a brand new IP.

2009: Halo ODST

2010: Halo Reach

2011: Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary

2012: Halo 4

Yeah, that maybe a supersaturation of the Halo market. I love Halo, but giving the game a few years to breath is also kind of nice.

You should read my thread called; "Why you should shut up and not tell people what games to enjoy or not enjoy and just play whatever games you like k?" 
 
It's actually not a thread.  It's just a post.  It's this post in fact.  Read it, learn it, love it.
 
BTW...I'm a fan of the Halo games, but whatever, don't be a douchebag.

It's not just Halo.  The entire FPS genre has been stale for about 5 years now.

I'll take your stale and raise it a mediocre.

@Sevan: My problem with Halo is the direction it went down. I was a huge Halo fan in the early days, but Reach destroyed Halo multiplayer for me. The beauty of Halo is that every player starts off exactly equal. With Reach everyone had different special abilities and it just didn't feel like Halo to me.

Can not help but notice the OP is a massive Halo Fan. Its a bit hard to take this post super serious when his background/avatar/page photo is all halo related. 

You forgot the part where Halo was never really good in the first place.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go play Quake 3..

I've had a pretty torrid affair with the Halo franchise as a whole, Halo 1 was ok, Halo 2 is where I most enjoyed the campaign, and I detest Halo Reach with a burning passion because of its piss poor AI and retarded checkpoint system. But I don't think I'd argue its stale or what have you, its got a dedicated fanbase and all that really matters is if those people are happy. 

@Sevan: Nice post but I disagree with Halo being the biggest name. It definitely was for a time but Call of Duty is by far the biggest at the moment.

@Sevan: It seems like you're quite passionate about Halo, so maybe you should just continue to enjoy it and not worry what other people think of it? You don't need a group of people to validate your opinion.

Have fun when the game launches, buddy! I'll probably pick it up, was a big fan of the original trilogy though I'm not too keen on what's come since. Looking forward to see the Chief fighting on some new enemy, though.

Those other games you mentioned significantly improved their gameplay and added many new mechanics. 
 
People's complaints with Halo aren't that "it's just another soldier vs. alien" story.  It's that's it's just another Halo game, in every way possible.  It's not drastically changing the feel of the weapons or tone of the story.  It's not adding new mechanics and triggers that completely change the experience. 
 
Compare something like the latest Super Mario Galaxy to the original Mario Brothers.  
 
Compare the leap in the quality of Assassins Creed to Brotherhood.
 
Now compare Halo: CE with Halo Reach. 
 
As for COD...why even bring that up?  People are much more negative about MW3 than they are about Halo 4.  

People have opinions on Halo, you're gonna have to deal with that. Get therapy I guess.

@Sevan: Nice post but I disagree with Halo being the biggest name. It definitely was for a time but Call of Duty is by far the biggest at the moment.