DarkReign2021 on Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:54 pm
In response to your last question, yes. Yes it would.
Honestly, though, I can tell you exactly why it was the biggest disappointment. It didn't have competitive multiplayer. In this sad, pathetic world where 95% of the gaming community absolutely insists on having some form of multiplayer to where you can kill your buddies for points to prove your dominance over them, a game without it will always end up suffering in one way or another. Whether it's Ratings in ODST or sales in Dead Space, lack of MP will always cause these unfortunate gems to suffer, hence why games like DS2 and AC: Brotherhood are having MP implemented into their offering no matter what the cost (Brotherhood's online will be dead soon and DS2's was terrible and never even took off to begin with.)
Campaign-wise, I'll admit ODST was a bit straight-forward and left something to be desired in the HUB world, but with the altered gameplay, the new mood and setting, and just the overall different-ness of it compared to the other Halo's, overall I have to say ODST was my second favorite Campaign in the series (Reach included.)
Firefight, and you'll probably consider me nuts after this, was more enjoyable in ODST than it is in Firefight. In Reach, I admit I enjoy the FF arcade gametype just for pure and simple slaughter. I admit it. It's fun. I also love being able to customize and alter various aspects of the matches for unique experiences. That being said, however, I felt the default FF experience was far stronger in ODST. The map selection was far more enjoable (I felt they were better built for FF matches as well.) The few with vehicles made much better and more consistent use of them, even though there was a larger variety of enemies to fight in Reach, ODST better diversified the different enemy types and made you feel like you had more unique enemies (multiple classes of Brutes, Grunts, Jackals, and Drones, Hunters, and even one level with engineers to mix things up. I never understood why they dropped most of those ranks from Halo Reach to begin with.) Enemies were also mixed together. Instead of having waves exclusively for Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, Skirmishers, and Elites/Hunters, you had all the enemies mixed together, which created an element of surprise as you never knew what to expect. On top of that weapons placed around the level made for a more strategic fight than simply dying and respawning with a new weapon of your choice. You really made those Rockets count and you wanted your Sniper and Shotgun last since you weren't getting more rounds until the end of the current round.)