: If Bungie's vision for Halo was complete, then they can burn out. If they
: were focused on delivering Halo games, then they can burn out. But they
: created a living universe in which their games took place, according to
: the fans that clung to it since the Cortana Letters.

: Bungie's burned out. Halo isn't.

Right, I agree with you. Halo isn't 'done' by any means, but the original author was. So now there is a new author, except that author is a group of fans just like us. They have the control to take the story in a direction they want (in fact, I think it was Frankie that wanted to delve more into the Forerunners IIRC....so maybe in a way Halo 4 is.... Frankie's Halo??) and a lot of people here weren't happy with that direction.

For example, I really liked the story arc for the Chief and Cortana (cheesy dialogue aside) but I HATE the Didact arc and the whole "an Ancient evil awakens" stuff. So very bland.

If I were the creative director I would have went in the direction of post war relations with the Covenant, similar to where the novels (at this time) are going or I would have involved the Flood and explored the precursor stuff more. Maybe Halo 5 will, IDK.

But I'm not the creative director.

For me I hit a stopping point. I know I needed a break. Aside from the LAN I threw a couple weeks ago I've been all Halo'd out. The weather is nice outside, I've got boring adult responsibility to take care of, I've got projects I want to work on (some Halo related even) and Halo 4's MP just didn't grab me like past incarnations did. It's not that its a bad game, its just not my kind of game and I'm OK with that. When I DO have free time to game you'll see me on Halo Wars because I genuinely enjoy it or something else because other friends are on and I go where they go.

I'm still reading the books and coming here because I'm still very much interested in Halo but I'm not interested in playing it at this current time for the above reasons. There are probably a few others who feel the same. I also kinda feel like that Halo 4 is 'done' at this point in its life cycle due to the pending release of a new console generation. Wu did point out that there are typically lulls in activity between a game being out for X long until the announcement of a new game.

To tell you the truth, I DID have some free time a couple weeks ago and decided to play a few levels of Halo 4's campaign again and I enjoyed it.I'm fairly confident that if I play it a few more times I'll find more things I like about it but in my case I have little to no interest in MP if my friends aren't there to join me.

Maybe 'burned out' is carrying too much of a negative connotation with a few here- that's understandable. Maybe I need a rest or a recharge would sound better- to me it means the same thing.