: That being said, some significant things happen that makes you wonder why
: there's no reference to them in past works (like Halo 4). The main villain
: is also an obvious homage to another antagonist that we've seen before,
: with almost the same motivation and execution of the plan.

I found the inclusion of another crazy Monitor to be disappointing. I was hoping the Ark's monitor would be different. Man, those poor things do not age well. I really liked the inclusion of the playable Elites from Halo 3, and both re-visiting familiar parts of the Ark as well as exploring new parts.

I still think all the animals should have been dead from the replacement Halo's activation. Maybe they aren't sentient, but couldn't they still provide the Flood with biomass and act as combat forms?
Maybe the activation did kill all the animals, and 000 re-seeded them. Oh well. I was very happy about the Blind Wolves :)

Oh, but were the "armatures" Promethean Soldiers? They sounded very similar. Why would they have been on the Ark?

Lastly, the way Henry died was stupid. Granted, people die in stupid ways all the time.

Even more lastly (lastlyest), I am once again very excited for the re-appearance of the Rubicon and Guitly Spark. Excited, I say!