Ask a Halo fanboy anything! Removing common misconceptions.

[Netrigan]

Single stick vehicle controls?

You mean not moving around the camera with the right thumbstick? I don't think so.

Every game I can remember playing with vehicles either used the typical sandbox game controls (trigger buttons to accelerate & break) or just let you control them with a single stick (letting you look around with the right stick, but steer with the left). Looks like I can get single stick control if I use the old Legacy setting, but then the much more important player movement controls would be screwed up.

And, I'm sorry, I really have trouble respecting Forge, as, starting around 1995, it was fairly common for fully functioning map editors to be shipped with games (with them, players could create professional quality original maps with existing and custom textures). Halo's ability to simply alter existing maps is a pretty massive step backwards from what I'm used to.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Single stick vehicle controls?

You mean not moving around the camera with the right thumbstick? I don't think so.

Every game I can remember playing with vehicles either used the typical sandbox game controls (trigger buttons to accelerate & break) or just let you control them with a single stick (letting you look around with the right stick, but steer with the left). Looks like I can get single stick control if I use the old Legacy setting, but then the much more important player movement controls would be screwed up.

And, I'm sorry, I really have trouble respecting Forge, as, starting around 1995, it was fairly common for fully functioning map editors to be shipped with games (with them, players could create professional quality original maps with existing and custom textures). Halo's ability to simply alter existing maps is a pretty massive step backwards from what I'm used to.

Fair enough.

But I don't think ANY console game had even forge level editing until halo 3. PC games did, of course, but not consoles.

For a console game, Forge is pretty damn awesome.

 

[Squilookle]

As for regerating health, I think it's important to note that Halo actually doesn't use the same regenerating health model all the other FPS's do, among other things.

I'm aware of how it works and why- I wanted to ask your opinion of where it has led regen health in games since.

- Halo used very special and at the time, advanced AI. All the enemy races and experences (blue elite vs. red elite, for example) used separate AI in game.

See that's exactly what I don't get- the AI controlled the enemy units competently in wide open environments in Singleplayer- would it not be reasonable to assume they could have put that into multiplayer too? Sure it would be difficult to program AI to work in the multiplayer, but most of the groundwork for it had already been done for singleplayer. All they needed was to allow vehicle use and add a bit of awareness about objectives, and that could even have been as basic as 'walk through the spot where the flag is, then do the same back at your base' and bam- instant CTF AI that works. Hell, Rage software pulled it off not six months later with Mobile Forces, and they had never even tried a FPS before then!

 

[Saviordd1]

Your points are good, but your spelling. dear...god

 

[godofallu]

Narrator: "A hero need not speak. When he is gone, the world will speak for him"

Cortanaon't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it.

Cortana: They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever spartan I wanted. You know me, I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others you were strong and swift and brave, a natural leader. But you had something they didn't, something noone saw but me. Can you guess? Luck.

Cortana: I have defied gods and demons. I am your shield; I am your sword. I know you... your past, your future. This is the way the world ends.

Gravemind: Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have gone. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on. I will ask, and you will answer.

I mean come on the dialogue is perfect, the game has a great singleplayer, co-op (split screen or online), firefight, multiplayer, guesting x 3, forge world... what other games offer that much content?

I wish every other FPS had 3 guest slots, or a fully customizable firefight mode.

 

[Skorpyo]

I do, in fact, have a burning question:

Why so much love for this series in particular? I don't want to start a rage/flame war, but I've pondered over it so much, and can't come to any conclusion.

To start, the single player story is REALLY convoluted. The first game explained nothing concerning motivations of any one side in this war we never see, and throws 2 enemy factions at the player at once, only to have later games increase the number of factions, even changing their allegiances.

Second, the gameplay. Compared to other games that have come out since, such as the latter half of the Half-life series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, etc., the gameplay in Halo is really simple. Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

As for the multiplayer aspect, I can see how that would garner much love (god knows I enjoy it), but MP alone does not a good game make.

Halo is okay, but why does it have so much of a following? It's just such a simplistic game...

 

[Vault101]

People still hate Halo?

I thought DA2 was the cool game to hate these days?

Except DA2 was actually pretty bad? Besides, it's still Call of Duty right now.

to be fair Its kinda hard what to think in regards to DA2....perhaps not comparing it to the orginial helps

I mean I have yet to play it but I dont think its as earth shattering awful as some "fans" are making it out to be (and some of them are the same ones who hate on ME2...my all time favorite game)

 

[Tupolev]

Why so much love for this series in particular? I don't want to start a rage/flame war, but I've pondered over it so much, and can't come to any conclusion.

To start, the single player story is REALLY convoluted. The first game explained nothing concerning motivations of any one side in this war we never see, and throws 2 enemy factions at the player at once, only to have later games increase the number of factions, even changing their allegiances.

The first game didn't have to explain much about the motivations of the different sides. It's a very non-explicit story; most of the storytelling drive comes from how visuals, sound design, gameplay, the shape of the narrative, and little details all resonate rather than from overt plot and character drive. Yes, the protagonist is an audience proxy and the plot mostly provides overall structure.
YMMV obviously, and the end result is unfortunately rather innaccessable; it's easily my favorite game of all time, but it did take years for my appreciation of it to grow into what it is now.

As for the rest, while you do need to understand earlier games to understand the latter ones, making them less accessable than most people think as well (Halo 3 in particular has extreme levels of Halo 1 references), I'm not sure what you mean by the storytelling being all that convoluted.

Second, the gameplay. Compared to other games that have come out since, such as the latter half of the Half-life series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, etc., the gameplay in Halo is really simple.

Mechanically speaking, yes. But mechanical complexity has very little to do with gameplay complexity. Go is mechanically simple and well, but its gameplay is incredibly sophisticated.

(Though, I actually won't defend Halo: Reach and to a lesser extent Halo 2 on these grounds. Their weapon design and damage balancing badly squanders much of their potential IMO.)

Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

I guess I don't have a great deal to so to this other than that it's an opinion that many of us Halo fans disagree with.

You'll have to be more specific if you want a meaningful answer.

 

[Netrigan]

I do, in fact, have a burning question:

Why so much love for this series in particular? I don't want to start a rage/flame war, but I've pondered over it so much, and can't come to any conclusion.

To start, the single player story is REALLY convoluted. The first game explained nothing concerning motivations of any one side in this war we never see, and throws 2 enemy factions at the player at once, only to have later games increase the number of factions, even changing their allegiances.

Second, the gameplay. Compared to other games that have come out since, such as the latter half of the Half-life series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, etc., the gameplay in Halo is really simple. Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

As for the multiplayer aspect, I can see how that would garner much love (god knows I enjoy it), but MP alone does not a good game make.

Halo is okay, but why does it have so much of a following? It's just such a simplistic game...

Even though I actively dislike this element of the game, I do think a lot of it has to do with the almost death-match style of the single player campaign. In Halo: Reach, most of the maps I've seen so far look like MP maps (and I believe a lot of them are) and from the first game, they've used very wide-open maps. Furthermore, the Elites remind me very much of the Skaarj in Unreal, very tough opponents who hop around to make kills a lot harder to make at distance.

The whole game seems to encourage close-range skirmishes or long-range sniping... probably the only game I've encountered where players look upon the assault rifle as slightly useless. Basically, the whole game has a different game play footprint from other shooters... which is pretty much why I dislike it.

 

[Katana314]

I think a lot of Halo fans have confused having an intricate and complex story with having a good story. Super Meat Boy has a story about a weird meaty guy saving his girlfriend from an evil doctor, and people love that story. I understand Halo has about 500 conflicts between humans and aliens, aliens and aliens, humans and humans, etc., but do any of those stand out in a specifically interesting way, that actually makes the story and character interactions unique?

 

[Skorpyo]

Why so much love for this series in particular? I don't want to start a rage/flame war, but I've pondered over it so much, and can't come to any conclusion.

To start, the single player story is REALLY convoluted. The first game explained nothing concerning motivations of any one side in this war we never see, and throws 2 enemy factions at the player at once, only to have later games increase the number of factions, even changing their allegiances.

The first game didn't have to explain much about the motivations of the different sides. It's a very non-explicit story; most of the storytelling drive comes from how visuals, sound design, gameplay, the shape of the narrative, and little details all resonate rather than from overt plot and character drive. Yes, the protagonist is an audience proxy and the plot mostly provides overall structure.
YMMV obviously, and the end result is unfortunately rather innaccessable; it's easily my favorite game of all time, but it did take years for my appreciation of it to grow into what it is now.

As for the rest, while you do need to understand earlier games to understand the latter ones, making them less accessable than most people think as well (Halo 3 in particular has extreme levels of Halo 1 references), I'm not sure what you mean by the storytelling being all that convoluted.

Second, the gameplay. Compared to other games that have come out since, such as the latter half of the Half-life series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, etc., the gameplay in Halo is really simple.

Mechanically speaking, yes. But mechanical complexity has very little to do with gameplay complexity. Go is mechanically simple and well, but its gameplay is incredibly sophisticated.

(Though, I actually won't defend Halo: Reach and to a lesser extent Halo 2 on these grounds. Their weapon design and damage balancing badly squanders much of their potential IMO.)

Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

I guess I don't have a great deal to so to this other than that it's an opinion that many of us Halo fans disagree with.

You'll have to be more specific if you want a meaningful answer.

Well, since I've run into someone being civil, I'll continue.

When I mean convoluted, I'm referring to the sheer number of sides presented through the story. First there's the covenant, then the flood, THEN GuiltySpark, then some of the factions switch allegiances, a few more races are added in later games...

It gets really, really confusing with who's doing what to who.

And as for the level design, I MOSTLY mean the repetitive nature of the levels in the first game. When I played Halo 2, though, I wasn't exactly blown away. The levels worked with the game-play mechanics, but they were still really simple, bland, and non-engaging. I'd reference F.E.A.R. for illustrating how the levels felt overall.

 

[Netrigan]

Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

I guess I don't have a great deal to so to this other than that it's an opinion that many of us Halo fans disagree with.

You'll have to be more specific if you want a meaningful answer.

Halo doesn't really have a good flow to their maps. I have a tendency to get turned around in them all the time and I usually have a pretty good sense of direction in shooters. A good example is the first ground mission in Combat Evolved, where you run out of the shuttle... in the wrong direction. In order to point yourself at the next objective, you have to turn 180 degrees after exiting the ship even though you have acres of space in front of you. This is bad flow, as the most natural direction to take is flat-out wrong.

Other than that, I don't think the series is really terribly good at coming up with interesting new settings for their maps. First game had a lot of green scrubland, space ship interior, and base interiors. The interiors were especially bad in that one room often looked exactly like another because every room has the exact same wall textures.

 

[Rusty pumpkin]

Honestly, the cod fan boys bug me more than halo ones. Any time a 15 dollar map pack with 5 maps and nothing else outsells an actual game is a problem. What I want to know is why should I go out and get these comic/books that the rest of Halos story lies in? This is a game, I play a game for story and gameplay, not for some incentive to spend money on a book that tells me about the story of the game i just bought and gameplay. Also, Halo 3 was boring. If you have some kind of defense as to why I should feel excited to have spent 5-6 hours shooting copy pasted alien enemies with the same gun in only slightly different levels (and my first time playing was on legendary with a friend) then please explain it.

 

[Lenny Magic]

Granted I have Only read The Fall of Reach, and stopped playing Halo games after Halo 3 (which was ok imo, but is somewhat of a forgettable blur), but it seems to me the characters really seem very disconnected from how they are in game. IE Master Chief being a very sneaky, commanding sort, with some sort of child like unquestioning innocence.

So my question is why isn't most of the interesting depth and information in the game rather than the books?

Ie if I had never read the book I would not have a clue about the fact Master Chief was abducted.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I think I read that cortana was a silent helper, comparable to navi

Navi silent?

Halo fanboy trying to come off as intelligent
Were at fail factor 7 boys

Please try to be respectful, I'm going out of my way to help get rid of that sterotype.



I need to go for now, I will be back and answer questions that were asked overnight.

 

[odd function]

I don't think they are hated because they are popular, it is because some people (like myself) see people rave about these games for inexplicable reasons while passing over actual good and stellar games. It doesn't help that most fans dismiss criticism-

treated unfairly due to the "it's so popular people start hating it" phenonma

-rather than entertain the idea that there are deep flaws to the games. Consider for the moment that most of the defense surrounding the storytelling and characterization and similar depends on things like the books, which reinforces the idea that the games themselves suffer from crap story-telling, but fans don't want to admit this flaw. I admire your effort, but I think that these days my ire has less to do with Halo being overrated (clearly not great, but still serviceable) and more to do with the fan-dumb. If people would cite things like gameplay, or multiplayer I'd understand how they could like the games. But story, and all that other stuff that goes with it, is provably bad as far as the games are concerned.

For the record I've played through the first two games trying to find the amazing story that is somehow worth turning into a movie (shouldn't have bothered, Doom got a movie after all). The in-game storyline is impossible to take seriously as military science fiction, because of the main character's uniqueness. I know that this is explained out of game, but before the franchise there was only the game which should have cleared this one up before the end. Master Chief also appears to be a bland expression of the player's wish-fulfillment, having less nuance than Doom's space marine (who has both nostalgia and facial expressions). I've browsed a halo wiki trying to find the amazing lore, but had to stop when I found a timeline which mentioned neo-communists and neo-fascists, I realize that Halo 2 made broad parallels to America's "War on Terror", but really, rehashing WWII and the Cold War yet again in a Sci-Fi setting? Give it a rest. Nevermind that prefixing everything with neo just because it's the future is worse than prefixing everything with cyber just because it involves computers. It also makes the back-story smell like it's tainted with "Son of Hitler/Stalin" type of lameness.

That said, if you are an FPS only type of gamer then I can see why you might latch onto Halo during the years between HL2 and Gears of War, though there could easily have been other better FPS's that I know nothing about, it isn't really my scene.

 

[Tupolev]

Well, since I've run into someone being civil, I'll continue.

When I mean convoluted, I'm referring to the sheer number of sides presented through the story. First there's the covenant, then the flood, THEN GuiltySpark, then some of the factions switch allegiances, a few more races are added in later games...

It gets really, really confusing with who's doing what to who.

Hmm, maybe. I dunno, I'd really love to answer this, but I've never really had that problem with it. I just don't find the factional arrangements to be all that complicated.

Of course, I've also been playing Halo 1 for over nine years, so make of that what you will.

And as for the level design, I MOSTLY mean the repetitive nature of the levels in the first game.

Yeah, this is always a hard one to explain, and I might not be the best person to explain it, but I'll take a gander at it anyway.

It's a hugely YMMV topic, and one that's been extremely divisive for an entire decade, so feel free to imagine that " for people who like the game" exists at the end of many of the sentences.

Geometric repetition within a given level can build a sense of cohesion, as if some facility truly was built for some larger purpose beyond serving as a route for a player. Oddly enough, the best example of this may very well be The Library.
As you work your way through the facility, as the level continues farther and farther, you can get absorbed into an odd rhythm; it's a rhythm of gameplay, a rhythm of the arrangement of same corridors, a rhythm of the oppressive sound design. It's a rhythm that can take the entire first floor before you fall into it, but if you can fall into it, it's mind-blowing and mesmerizing. (Note that this might be another case of Halo 1 innaccessability problems; long ago I, like most people, disliked even the thought of The Library. Yet even back then, if I could stick with it for a full playthrough, I seem to recall usually having a blast by the end.)

Repitition of levels themselves can be used for different reasons, mostly revolving around contrast:
-Two Betrayals is a symbolic and literal mirror of Assault on the Control Room. Literal, in the sense that it uses the geometry backwards, starting from the finishing point of the first level. But it's much more than that. AotCR was the big linear push of act two, and Two Betrayals is the (start of the) big linear push of act three. AotCR is a midday push, with sunlight streaming down from above, while Two Betrayals is your big foray into the dead of night. AotCR has some of the most memorable alongside-marine fighting in the game, while Two Betrayals has an atmosphere that tries hard to emphasize how alone the player is. AotCR is the pinnacle of the games' two-sided conflict, while Two Betrayals features some of the most intense and chaotic multi-way battling.
-Keyes is built to parallel Truth and Reconciliation, down to the mission objectives, so as to emphasize how things have changed. (Though the level's primary purpose is probably to strike the player in the gut with the Keyes blob.)
-The Maw reuses the geometry for some fairly simple style reasons. The Pillar of Autumn on the cliffs is a straight heartstring tug, while simultaneously looking epic and rather apocalyptic, a fitting introduction for the games' climax. Other than that, it completes the circle; Halo 1 is a very self-contained story.

Encounters in repeated areas are often staged fairly differently, and so the gameplay can wind up feeling fresh regardless of repeats.

And if all that comes together for a player, the games stops being good despite the repetition, but rather because of it.

When I played Halo 2, though, I wasn't exactly blown away. The levels worked with the game-play mechanics, but they were still really simple, bland, and non-engaging.

I have that problem to some extent with some levels in the later games in the series. For all its problems, I think I like Outskirts/Metro the most out of Halo 2's levels, simply because it is, at least, quite interesting in its encounter design.

Though I must say that most of Halo 2's levels have incredible style. It still saddens me that development fails damaged its overarching structure and made it become rather episodic in feel.

 

[HassEsser]

I hate the Flood. The Flood has always been the worst part of any of the games because I simply do not have fun fighting them or walking in their gross and simple environments.

I disagree. The Flood was the best part of Halo CE and I really didn't like how they didn't appear in Halo 2 or 3.

Otherwise, Halo CE and Halo 2 were great, but Halo 3 fucking sucked; the story was insanely boring, and the multiplayer was the same copy-pasted ranking system you see in every single game nowadays.

Erm... did you sleep through most of 2 and 3 or something? They were one of the main elements of all three games in the trilogy.[/quote]I didn't finish Halo 3. It sucked.

And the Flood played a much larger role in Halo CE than in Halo 2. In CE you were flooded by the Flood, but, in Halo 2, situations involving the Flood were never as intense as they were in CE.

 

[mikepyro]

My feeling is halo came along at a time when mp and fps were in infancy and helped revolutionize, but then never evolved. We've been left with the same bland characters, design, story while other games push limits and remain in halos shadow. Halo reach I actually really enjoyed the so cuz it was something different for them and they at least tried to make a solid cast and world.

Honestly halo is a game with a deservedly praised multiplayer ut an undeservedly hailed story and popularity and praise

 

[Waffle_Man]

I don't think they are hated because they are popular, it is because some people (like myself) see people rave about these games for inexplicable reasons while passing over actual good and stellar games. It doesn't help that most fans dismiss criticism-

treated unfairly due to the "it's so popular people start hating it" phenonma -rather than entertain the idea that there are deep flaws to the games.

You're sure popularity had nothing to do with it? Wouldn't that hypothetically entail you getting mad at anyone who ever liked a game that you didn't? Well, I admit that this is hyperbole, but people only have a valid reason to complain about things that affect them. Video games, by their commercial nature, have very little likely hood of affecting any other games unless they prove popular. It is a valid reason to hate a mechanic and there are serious reasons to hate a game, but how often do you see rants about how awful an obscure and horribly made game from the 90s was? You don't, because no one would care. Notice how "video game" movies are always talked about as "video game movies," with very few actual examples given. It's because bad games are quickly forgotten. Few people actually care about bad video games because of the games themselves. Sure, people will talk about specific bad games, but it's ubiquitously because of the specific circumstances surrounding the game, not because the game necessarily stands out in anyway (though some games can fail so horribly that people remember them with a small amount of fondness, but this isn' the case here).

You're right in the given excuse not being a valid reason to criticize something, but this doesn't pertain to the validity of the proposal, just the effects. This isn't a valid excuse for the games' faults, but it is a valid observation.

Consider for the moment that most of the defense surrounding the storytelling and characterization and similar depends on things like the books, which reinforces the idea that the games themselves suffer from crap story-telling, but fans don't want to admit this flaw.

I would hardly call this a flaw. You know why many people who haven't read comic books for a long time don't want to get into them? Because they're complicated to the point of being impenetrable. Why are soap opera's and anime frequently criticized for their cheesy writing? Because they try to shove as much detail in as possible.

Sure, Bungie could have spent hours on cutscenes describing all of the characters' various issues and angst. They could have gone into detail about every faction and culture. They could have included the massive story bible. Why didn't they? Because most people don't care. Those people didn't read the books, and they're happy. I do care, so I read the books. I'm happy. One of the reasons the first game is almost unanimously heralded as the best is because it was truest to this principal. The other two somewhat faltered here because they started to assume that everyone did care, and the additional information just didn't fit well.

It would be a valid complaint if Bungie simply hadn't thought of the material and hadn't described things out of laziness, but they did, so the point is moot.

I admire your effort, but I think that these days my ire has less to do with Halo being overrated (clearly not great, but still serviceable) and more to do with the fan-dumb. If people would cite things like gameplay, or multiplayer I'd understand how they could like the games. But story, and all that other stuff that goes with it, is provably bad as far as the games are concerned.

is provably bad as far as the games are concerned.

games

I will admit, halo doesn't have the greatest story ever told in a game, but are you seriously saying that halo has a bad story compared to other video games? In fact, up until halo, most (though not all) first person shooters didn't have stories so much as reiterated premises. Even Half-life, which has an outstanding plot, literally has next to no story and no real characters.

For the record I've played through the first two games trying to find the amazing story that is somehow worth turning into a movie (shouldn't have bothered, Doom got a movie after all).

The whole point of a good story is that I shouldn't be able to point to it and say "there's the story, isn't it great?" As for comparisons with doom (and the fact that you're bringing up THAT movie)... Really?

The in-game storyline is impossible to take seriously as military science fiction, because of the main character's uniqueness. I know that this is explained out of game,

Contrary to popular belief, military science fiction doesn't completely strip people of their uniqueness. Aside from that it isn't difficult to imagine special equipment being issued not to everyone. The only reason we know that it is unique in the first place is because of the manual...

but before the franchise there was only the game which should have cleared this one up before the end.

...which did have that material, and was released with the game. Again, additional information.

Master Chief also appears to be a bland expression of the player's wish-fulfillment, having less nuance than Doom's space marine (who has both nostalgia and facial expressions).

I guess that makes Gordon Freeman (half-life), Chell (portal), Jack (bioshock) all pretty awful too.

I've browsed a halo wiki trying to find the amazing lore,

Couldn't find the forest with all of these damn trees in the way?

but had to stop when I found a timeline which mentioned neo-communists and neo-fascists,

Which I'm sure that no one would would ever try calling someone else in real life.

I realize that Halo 2 made broad parallels to America's "War on Terror", but really, rehashing WWII and the Cold War yet again in a Sci-Fi setting? Give it a rest.

This would be a valid point if it weren't for the fact that pretty much all of the story was thought up before 9/11. The reason there are parallels is because you found them in it. In fact, there are numerous instances of perceived allegory that had nothing to do with the supposed event, but people find parallels anyway. I mean, how does the story parallel WWII and the Cold War anyway? WWII was more than just a war between Communism and Fascism and it wasn't the only war involving the two ideologies. Plus, it has absolutely none of the iconography. As for the cold war, I'm just not seeing any espionage involved here. If you want parallels (which the game does make reference to), it would be the second persian invasion of greece (not to imply that you can't hate those references).

Never mind that prefixing everything with neo just because it's the future is worse than prefixing everything with cyber just because it involves computers. It also makes the back-story smell like it's tainted with "Son of Hitler/Stalin" type of lameness.

Again, things are frequently named by their worst critics. Neo- is very commonly used prefix.

That said, if you are an FPS only type of gamer then I can see why you might latch onto Halo during the years between HL2 and Gears of War, though there could easily have been other better FPS's that I know nothing about, it isn't really my scene.

It's funny that you listed two games that came out after the first halo, and one that came out as the same time as halo 2.

I find it more insulting that someone wants to rationalize why I like a game than if they simply called me an idiot for liking it. By rationalizing, they're assuming that they know everything about me, what I like, and what I think. They're assuming that they know what I'm in the mood to play at any given moment. They assume they know why I play video games.

I've played tons of shooters both before and after Halo. I've played tons of video games in general, both before and after. Halo isn't the best games I've ever played. I've played games that have made me think and feel more. It isn't even my favorite game made by Bungie. What it is, however, is a game that I found enjoyable, memorable, finely craft, and facilitative to socialization, which I can only wish of a small number of games I've played.

Its gameplay isn't the most complex in the world, nor is it the flashiest in the world, but it's hardly standard. Mechanically simple? Yes? Shallow? Hell no. Sure, people make parallels to any number of games. It's been called tactical, mindless, slow, fast, heavy, light, too complex, to simple, ect. That's why I find it so enjoyable, it isn't any of those things. It's unique, it's own brand. It's different not because of how well it does something well, because of how it does several things seamlessly. Every shooter that has attempted to copy it has either become unreal or call of duty. Sure, the game allows for enemies to be defeated simply by shooting at it with an inappropriate gun, but this is hardly the best strategy. This doesn't mean that people can't dislike it's style, but it's errant to call the game "generic."