I'm in a similar camp.

While it would have been more effective without the ship exterior design change, Dawn had very strong sense of place and a mostly great aesthetic style that, more than any other place in the campaign worked perfectly with Halo 4's graphics to produce something good (even the lens flares and such on that level are *mostly* well-used). Remember that screenshot and imagery of the cryo bay prior to Halo 4's launch? It conveyed a very good style that I was excited about, and the level mostly nailed it in-game. The gameplay wasn't super inspiring (and one "fight" was a QTE, lol), but it mostly flowed well enough to do what it was trying to do.

I wasn't sold on everything about it, and it's not something that would be a repeated go-to experience like AotCR or The Ark, but Dawn+Requiem's opening absolutely got me ready for what Halo 4 had to offer. I felt like the game really had a lot of potential and that, if 343i played their cards right, it could rank up there with Bungie's finest. And I'm going to cut off right here before the tone of this post takes a sharp turn (whoops, self-inflicted too-latedness).