So the Halo Reach beta has been released, and like a half a million other Halo fans out there, I’m all over it like a Jack Russell in a chop house. Coming from a longtime Halo player, you’d expect this blogpost to be waxing poetic about how the level design has really upped the bar for multiplayer games, how the weapon balance has clearly been tested to be sure there are no absolute game killers, how the gutting and rewriting of the game engine has resulted in visuals that are truly top of the line. And, yeah all that’s true. But with so much focus on the multiplyer the games gone cold. It’s lost it’s charm.

We were introduced to a massive new game universe. We were given the opportunity to be the ass-kickin right fist of the Marine Corps. We met characters who were interesting, who had backstories we wanted to hear. Entire books have been spawned from this game, comic books, movies (well, they tried at least). And here we are, left with what is essentially just another game where you try to shoot people before they shoot you first.

This is not the Halo I fell in love with. The third game in the series had a woefully short story, ODST was an improvement, but still too damn short. They’re losing that player connection, we just don’t get a chance to delve any further into the universe, and worse than that, Halo: Reach doesn’t make me *want* to.