Halo 3 (in progress) review

Busted into Halo 3 for the first time last night. Seems that I'm in the camp who got a copy of the Collector's Edition that came all scratched and stuff, but it still worked. But that's beside the point. So last night I got through the second act of the game (out of nine) and felt like blogging my initial impressions of the game. Mostly because with all the hype of the "Jesus game" I figured it couldn't hurt to have a less than glowing review out there.

It might be the ridiculous amount of hype and marketing that's all around, irritating the crap out of me (yes, Microsoft, I know that Halo 3 is coming, please stop with the marketing campaign bigger than Star Wars), or perhaps it's just the way things are, but as of right now I'm not amazingly enthralled in the game. It feels like Halo. It feels like Halo 2. It is exactly what the tag line says. "Finish the Fight". It plainly states that this is exactly what you've played twice before, just in different maps with some new weapons and gizmos that don't particularly change the way the game is played. When a Brute throws down a bubble shield (which seems to be fairly often) it's not much different than an Elite stepping behind a shield or box, except you can't use an overcharge shot or grenade to take out the bubble shield like you can those portable shield things. Granted, having a bubble shield is awesome if you're out in the open, gives you a chance to recharge, but there's no big change here.
The way everything feels is largely the same, except for the complete gimping of the pistol, but yeah. So far the single player campaign feels like an expansion. It's just there so that you can finish the storyline that couldn't (or at least wasn't) in Halo 2. In one review I'd read they pointed out that there were many fewer parts where you had to backtrack through an area you've already been through and I was ecstatic, reminiscing at how I wanted to shoot myself going through the Library TWICE in Halo. However, the second act features one such level where you run to the end, run back almost to the beginning, run back close to the end, and then run to an area that might as well be the beginning. Artificial level length sucks.

Playing through the beta I'm quite convinced that the multiplayer is largely more of the same as well. Weapon balancing, new maps, polish, etc abound, but it's just more of the same. Does it make the game less fun? No, certainly not. Is it overhyped? So far, IMO, yes. Graphics are better (though not to the degree that Halo 1 & 2 were in their time, Halo 3 is quite behind many other titles in terms of graphics, especially character models for everyone but Master Chief, the Arbiter and Sgt Johnson) and the environments are more engrossing with some pretty nice foliage effects in the opening level. We'll see how the game ends, if the story turns out to be fantastic, but for now I'm not particularly surprised that I purchased the end of the story mode with some entertaining multiplayer and undeniably awesome 4-player co-op. I'm sure it'll be worth it, but I'd have to say there are titles coming that I have a higher degree of anticipation. Game on.