I actually liked the environments, visuals, and fidelity of Halo 5. It running on the Xbox One was a miracle, even with frame drops.

The story of 5 was miserable too. Fighting the warden so many times was just lazy and not fun.

And yeah, lore wise the abilities made sense, but I didn't really like the gameplay of most of them, albeit it was interesting at times -- especially in breakout. I loved breakout when I wanted quick intense moments.

And I hated the Promethean weapons and design. Everything was too greebled. It just was too busy.

Some weapons were neat, but overall just felt boring after the "newness" wore off, and yet I still love covenant designs. Just something about them.

The art design also SUCKED. I understand it extended from 4, but it just wasn't very good.

Halo 5 cleaned up a bunch of areas though, so it was BETTER, but still not ideal. Halo infinite is so much better in that regard.

I hated husky raid. It was fun for mindless shooting, but it got so boring as it was essentially a stalemate 99% of the time with random shooting.

I actually disliked warzone firefight with a boring passion. Part of it was because I knew it was only greenlit to remove reqs from the req economy and certain design decisions were done explicitly for that vs fun.

If you played firefight consistently, you'd easily run out of reqs -- intentionally.

I did like the PvE in warzone, albeit it did get stale -- but it was definitely interesting. I would enjoy that kind of thing as special "power weapons" on maps, where an AI boss good be killed / kited for an advantage.

Customs was pretty awesome, albeit forge maps looked like ass with their lighting. It was necessary as the Xbox One held everything back, but it just felt so bland.

I have to disagree with you hard on warzone not being pay 2 win.

I use the definition for pay 2 win of:

If an advantage over other players, especially if amortized over length of play, can be gained over a player who never spends money (or spends less), then it's pay 2 win.

Reqs were essentially pay 2 skip. Which is pay 2 win. When holding variables where players are both aware, reasonably skilled, and evenly matched, the person who pays money will have an edge.

They, even though it's random, amortized, will have better items overall -- especially if their choices are more given they have more req packs.

And yeah, Halo 4-infinite really don't get anywhere close to Halo reach for customization