Uh, the part where he wrestles with the emotional conflict between losing his brother to the corps while simultaneously being enrolled in one of the UNSC's premier military academies and not knowing whether he actually wants to support the government that took his brother to his death?
If you don't see character development in Forward Unto Dawn, you need to look a bit harder.
This was game was like the anti-Reach in that it had a pretty great story and script, but I'm not convinced the actual gameplay really excited me. It was fine, but it felt a little flat. Even in multi it's not totally grabbing me.
I... well, I enjoyed the gameplay, but I'm not sure I
enjoyed the gameplay. I played through solo on Heroic the first time, and there are only two or three viable ways to deal with enemies consistently at that level. Light rifle scoped to take out the Watchers before they retreat out of view, unscoped to take out Crawlers with headshots. Take out Knights last unless they're up in your face, and do it with a whole bunch of bullets. Auto-sentry is your best friend forever. The Suppressor is ****ing useless unless you're close enough for melee to work better. The Boltshot is similarly useless unless you run out of ammo for your Light Rifle. Scattershot has such pitiful range that it's only useful in niche situations and you shouldn't waste a slot on it unless you're running out of
all of your ammo. Binary Rifle is a sniper rifle with less ammo.
Honestly, what I enjoyed simultaneously the most and the least about Halo 4's gameplay is how little ammo there is compared to previous titles. While playing, it was frustrating as hell to never be able to have enough Light Rifle ammo, and even more frustrating to use my starting UNSC weapons (which I absolutely loved, for a change) because the odds of finding any kind of ammo for them
at all later in the level was slim to none. That achievement for carrying a human weapon throughout all of mission three on heroic or harder? It's really a challenge, because you get one useful weapon for the entire level. On the other hand, it also forced a more dynamic approach to combat. There's no longer any real way to sit and snipe in one spot until there are no enemies left, move up a few feet, and do it again. Well, unless the level
gives you that kind of ordinance, which only happens four or five times in eight missions. It imposes challenge without creating
too much artificial difficulty.
I think the absolute biggest issue in the sandbox is that knights are not particularly aggressive. The Halo AI formula of 'primary attack zone' and 'fallback zone', with a clear barrier past which the enemies won't aggress towards you, really incentivizes boring mid-range DMR/BR/LR/carbine combat.
This is definitely true for knights, but I know that grunts and jackals (and crawlers, the bastards) will aggressively root you out unless you're entirely beyond range for them.