To me, I really got the feeling that I was fighting a losing battle that got worse as time went on. Every objective I completed to get the advantage was overshadowed almost instantly by a bigger threat. Sacrifices were invalidated instantly, and my team of supposed to be immortal Spartans, which I realized that because of playing the other games, I, like the civilians of the Halo universe couldn't believe any one of them could stay dead, were as human as the rest of the world. Hell, there's one teammate whose death came out of nowhere, which made you realize that letting your guard down for an instant, no matter what you'd survived, or how important you were, was a death sentence. It also helps that the game closely mirrors ODST, which had you in a team of cannon fodder (albiet, the best of the best cannon fodder) where it seemed like anyone could die, whereas this has your much more colorful, supposed to be supersoldiers playing by that rule by the book. Sure other deaths were more predictable, but it still got to me to see someone going down fighting odds they couldn't beat. Also it felt like the addition of names to the faceless marines made me suddenly feel as if a person had died rather than just an NPC (and they would die).
As for the campaign's abridged nature, I really didn't see a problem at all. The action flowed relatively smooth to the next scene, though I'd saw there were a few rough spots here and there (I actually wouldn't have minded a forest crawl after the crash, even if there were no enemies, because the pistol-only, no ammo setting would have put me on edge, but I guess Bungie felt it would bog down the coop quick action). Overall, the set pieces the game presented were all well done (even the ones that mirrored the old games, as Reach at least put the effort into it to make them feel unique in their own way), the weapons finally looked like they were as lethal as the books said they were (I will continue to say this: I find it hilarious that I could get a 10 year old to buy those books, which accurately discribe what bullets, shrapnel, and molten globs of plasma would do to flesh, while same 10 year old will be prevented from buying the game because of its mostly undeserved M rating), the armory system interacting with single player has given me a lot more reasons to replay than the other games ever have, and it's fun while being challenging. It actually exceeded my expectations and hopes for a Halo game rather than being a let down.
