It shouldn't be faulted for being unable to re-explain the whole story to a newcomer, seeing as it's the third installment of a series, and thus mostly conclusion. It's like going right into Return of the King and expecting know what happened in Fellowship and Two Towers.
Yes and no, this was the first Halo on the 360, a lot of people likely hadn't played a Halo title before if they didn't own the original Xbox (or the PC Halos), which makes this the big game to both satisfy the long-time fans and pull in newbies into the series, to do that they ought to make it much less alienating for the new folk only just coming into the franchise, and as one of those new folk I wasn't at all impressed.
On a similar vein, my friend played Half-Life 2 without having played the original, and despite that handicap he said he found the game very easy to get into; he understood who everyone was meant to be, the characters explained the back-stories enough so that he didn't feel left out. Now HL 2 did have many new characters and you could argue that with the massive change in setting and situation it is a different game altogether, but regardless Valve did a great job of making it easy for players new to the HL series in without making them feel lost, Halo 3 didn't give me any of that. So yes, maybe it's a game for the original fans who've been through the series all the way, but if that is the case then it's short sightedness on the developers part. Though it did make a shitzillion dollars so I guess I'm a minority here.
I'll argue that Half-Life 2 is just as bad. I will never understand how anyone can enjoy that boring, ugly, generic shooter. And yes, I have played the whole thing, and it is just as bad as you're making Halo 3 out to be. I'll also point out that Half-Life 2 and Half-Life have so little in common that they really are seperate games. You can play Half-Life 2 without playing 1 and get through the game fine. Its just dull and ugly, in my opinion.
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First Impressions of the franchise
If someone asked me to show them what the physical representation of 'meh' is, I'd show them my copy of Halo 3. I have missed out on all the exclusives to the Xbox 360 and have never before played the system's biggest franchise Halo, but now I've finally played all the way through the third instalment for the first time.
First and foremost; the game is technically fine. Just... ok. The running, gunning, graphics, music, all of this is what I expect of a typical FPS. Rather what bothers me is where the hell all the critical praise is aimed at, for as far as I can see the game is as bland as vaseline on toast. As a newbie to the series I admit I'm completely alien to the story, the characters and what the hell is going on, and kinda hoped with it being the the first new Halo title on the console it would sell the story and make me want to play all the other games in the series, rather it has had quite the opposite affect; I couldn't wait for the game to end and having finished it I've no yearning to play it again any time soon.
I felt no emotion for Master Chief or any of his stock friends, I stopped listening to the dialogue after a few hours and seemingly missed nothing since most of the objectives were usually 'go here, press this, go over there, press that', with the wonky vehicle sections every now and then. Speaking of the vehicles, who the hell thought using both analogue sticks to drive and steer was a good idea? My car rolled over, smacked into walls, and fell into pits more times than I can remember. The enemy tanks and bikes seem to have main character sense as 99% of the time they aimed for me and only me, though that might have something to do with me being the only competent guy on the battlefield, my allies often driving in circles and completely missing the gigantic walking purple monstrosities not 10ft away.
The weapons bugged me too, the alien grunts seem to take over half a magazine before finally succumbing, usually with little or no reaction to being shot at, though since many of the high-tech space lasers are bright green and purple and make very unsatisfactory PEW PEW PEW noises I really can't blame them. Even for the time I fail to see how this game earned so many awards and high scores when at it's core it's a barely competent sci-fi shooter. £3 and I still feel cheated.