You know most of this post thread is just people hating on Reach instead of an actual discussion of the game. From what I can see by skimming and actually reading your posts I can see a few things.
First there are actually people trying to talk to each other about their shared interest about the game and you have a lot of people jumping in to try and make them feel bad because their own experience with the game sucked.
Secondly, all the people who hate reach, use the same reasons, and nothing about your actual experience with the game. Most of you point out about the mechanics, design, and gameplay as lacking, and do you know why that it is laughable? It is laughable because you people are so spoiled and you are judging the game on todays standards of gaming and technology, reach was at a high standard at the time and it is unfair to say that it lacks the things we have now, because they didn't have the technology nor the ability to make the game any better than it was at the time.
Then you have people complaining about the content of the game. How odd that they would complain about a game that actually used player created content in multiplayer, or a game where the weapons aren't to exact liking of individuals who would rather use another gun custom tailored to their specific preferences or a game that gave more customizations options to your character than any Halo game.
Next you have people saying the ranking system was not skill based. Thats fine if you want one that displays how hard you worked to get a numbered score, but it was based to show dedication, not skill. It was made like that to give everyone the ability to have a reachable goal, that we can all share, not so one person can stand at the top with an impossibly high score.
Lastly, ARMOR LOCK. You people really make no sense. Your reasoning to hating armor lock is that it was the perfect counter to a lot of things. And do you know why it was the perfect counter to those things, its because it was designed to counter those specific scenarios. Sticky grenades, splatter, power weapons, explosions. These are all the things that cannot be countered head on unless you use armor lock. You rant about how people would just go into armor lock and whoop you, its because you don't learn anything. Armor lock is meant to perfectly counter those things and fail at everything else, thats its trade-off. Its meant to only protect you for those things, then if you use it wrong, you die. Armor lock added a danger to splattering people. People before and now go on splatter sprees unchecked, because there is no personal defense to counter it, what your gonna get a power weapon to shoot them before they can?, sorry you were spawn killed by a vehicle, or they boosted into you before you can do anything. Armor lock had a huge window of opportunity to be countered as well. You are immobile, you have a very tiny range of effect, once you come out of armor lock you can't move and extremely vulnerable. Thats how special abilities are balanced.
Halo is a constantly evolving franchise, yes there are things you don't like and yes there are mechanics that just don't work, but things change with the next game. You should be thanking reach. For all its faults and successes, we have learned from them and it, and now we move forward into making better games. Yes you personally didn't like this game and the things that made up the game, but others do, the game can't please everyone. Remember this for every one of you who do not like this game or certain other games, there are a thousand more who do like this game or that game. Yes you can tell us why you didn't like it, but to say a game is bad because you don't agree with it and thats all there is to it, shows that you have no patience and no respect for the work that people have put into making these games for everyones enjoyment.
