Huh, you're right. It's obviously worse than Command and Conquer 4. Or Duke Nukem Forever. Or The Force Unleashed. Or any number of a hundred titles that don't get spotlights for how bad they are because nobody cares.
I can't argue that the Chief isn't flat. He is. But then that's probably why he's the player character. A game that constantly ****s on the player isn't the most fun thing to play.
Besides which, kidnapped from his parents at age 6, subjected to horrifying enhancement procedures that had a greater than 50% casualty rate, 30 years constant combat in a unit you don't get to leave until you die, jumped by horrifying parasites, stranded alone in the middle of SpaceTM in a dinky fighter, jumped again by horrifying parasites, stranded on a large hostile ship in the middle of SpaceTM, chucked out the window of said large hostile ship into Earth's atmosphere for a last-minute appointment with the ground, jumped a third time by horrifying parasites, and finally stranded in a derelict ship in the middle of SpaceTM.
And that's just the stuff you learn about in the games proper. Yeah, those aren't real setbacks. Just because we hear an unwavering voice doesn't mean nothing bad happens.
So he's the unstoppable flatman who has it because of a bad past. So interesting. Wait, no it's not, that's fanfiction level of writing. [Oh my OC is so powerful but he/she is such because of a dark and conflicted and edgy past~] There is no joy in playing Superman, for me, and he stinks of author avatarism (I can so see Chief being whom the guys at Bungie wanted to be).
We're hearing plenty about how bad DNF is, TFU was consistently slated and it's sequel was derided, C&C 4 was spat upon and buried. The reason you consistently hear about Halo is because for some reason it became a hit (Well, probably because it's a fun multiplayer game series), but for a game series that makes itself out as some sci-fi magnum opus of awesome, the writing and attention paid to the SP campaigns and their own canon is shockingly bad. Reach especially is guilty of these points, the quality of the writing was godawful and it pretty much kicked over everything else about the Fall of Reach. Halo 1 and the first novels were decent, if average sci-fi. Halo 2 was okay, ODST was a peak back up to Halo 1 levels, and then 3 and Reach were just downhill.
Of course, I *also* dislike the Halo series for eclipsing the Advent Rising series, because that was a series that had marginally more potential and that I enjoyed somewhat more than Halo 1 (Although, naturally, Halo 1's MP wins out, as AR had none).
Maybe I should point out this is the opinion of a gamer who enjoys singleplayer more than MP, because I enjoy the plots and stories of games, so it irks me when a series (Halo post 2) claims to be something other than a reason to justify their multiplayer man-shoots.