: The 'action' was a mess. Filling the screen with as many things as possible
: to fool people into thinking something exciting is happening is not good
: story telling, and its not going to leave a long lasting impression.
: Absolutely terrible.

How exactly did you interpret anything after jumping out of a perfectly good Pelican as storytelling? First and foremost thing was meant to show what Spartans can really do. That's something we've seen very little of in visual mediums outside of running into a group of enemies guns blazing and coming out unscathed.

This was an exciting, and admittedly over-the-top, sample of many things you can actually do in gameplay such as the ground pound, rocket fisty thing, and running through walls. In that respect it does serve as a good story building tool because there isn't too much of a disconnect now between what Spartans should be able to do and what they can do in gameplay. Giving players a tease of a Spartan's real abilities and then letting them do the same thing in the game gives them a sense that they really are in the boots of a supersoldier like never before.

Sure, outside of quicktime events you aren't going to be able to dance through an enemy dropship or step on Ghost drivers' heads. I don't think anyone was expecting for Spartans in Halo: Reach to be able to jump up into the air, do flips, and hold Elites hostage while your teammate stabs them to death like with what we saw in Halo Wars. It's cool but ridiculous and totally unwieldy in a first person shooter. I really just don't see what the backlash is with this cinematic considering that it's mostly only stylizing things you can actually do yourself in the game.