: ...or does the shotgun suck in ODST? I tried giving it a whirl during
: campaign (on heroic/legendary, mind you) and it just didn't seem to have
: the same stopping power. Brutes required several more shots than I
: remember in Halo 3, even at point blank range.

: Am I doing something wrong?

No. You're not. I don't remember the shotgun being a one shot kill on Brutes on Heroic, and certainly not Legendary, in H3. The biggest issue for me though is it's not the shotgun that changed, but the soldier holding it.

You have to get SO CLOSE to the enemy in order to make it effective, even in H3. To me, it *seems* less effective because I'm not running up into people's faces like the Master Chief. As an ODST, a couple pimp slaps from a Brute and you're dead. I suppose it's more of an ambush weapon now for smaller enemies, but then there's almost always a more overall effective choice to have in your arsenal. I tried using it on Alpha Site in Firefight, and maybe I was doing it wrong, but I almost got killed in the first couple waves because of how close I had to get to make any impact on the enemy. It didn't take long to whip out the automag, and sigh, 'Home, Sweet Home.'

'Boom! Headshot!'