Depends what you mean by Halo, because there's the games and then there's the franchise. Personally, I love the games and really don't care too much about the merchandise (although the books and recent anime were actually very good), but the unprecedented success of Halo as a franchise has made it a big name, and a big target for people to rag on. As a result, people forget the fact that Halo is one of the most important game series of the last decade because it's mainstream enough to talk about in a pub without drawing funny looks. Gamers can be a funny bunch who complain about not being represented in mainstream media, but the rejecting virtually any game that breaks through into the mainstream.