I've played around 6 hours now... I'm starting to find some of these reviews hilarious.
Let's start:
According to some of the naysayers (gamepro) the game eliminated exploration for more combat. However, even after only 6 hours I have backtracked almost everywhere at least twice on the second planet. I have gone through periods of 30 minutes at a time without any major combat encounters... I mean this feels like a Prime game, not like a shooter. No, there isn't as much time spent backtracking, but the balance is perfect. The game is without a doubt Adventure over Shooter, not the other way around. Which leads us to our next point:
If you even play the game for a couple hours, you will be able to tell that this is purely an adventure game. This feels like Zelda in Sci-Fi more than Halo, other than the starship and first planet. I'll admit that level is much more combat focused, but it's there for tutorial purposes, and sadly even the tutorial level is a deeper and more rewarding gameplay experience than anything in either Halo game.
Anyone criticizing this game for lack of multiplayer in reviews has not played much of it at all, or is simply a complete moron and should never be allowed to use a keyboard, much less post review scores on the internet. Bioshock is much more of a shooter than this game (granted I only played it for about 20 minutes, but I'm very confident in that statement), and was not criticized for no multiplayer.
Yes, it has a fun control scheme that does blow away dual analog, but great control schemes =/= the necessity of multiplayer. The style of the game is not conducive for multiplayer. I do hope that someone else uses the controls to make a great multiplayer game sometime, but this is not it. Get over it. Some people like single player games, and there is no excuse for reviewing a single player game lower because it wasn't the type of game you wanted... that's like reviewing Super Mario Galaxy and saying "Well, it's the best platformer ever, but I wanted an RPG. 8/10"
Another funny complaint: It's unoriginal. The only thing unoriginal about it is that it still follows a similar formula to the previous games. I mean my god, that's like saying every FPS game ever is unoriginal because they are all linear. At least Prime 3 introduced a revolutionary new control scheme that blows away any previous FPS control set up. The creative uses of new visors, the unbelievably incredible, unique, and gorgeous environments, and the amazing controls not only set it apart from the other 2 Prime games: They set it on top of them, and set a standard for ALL adventure games.
My complaints: There was too much combat in the first world, which was too linear. It was really a tutorial world though so I'm being nit picky. The voice acting is a bit cheesy at times, but most of the time very good and the game has a good dramatic flare. That's it so far. My score at this point: a 9.7. It's not perfect, but it's much closer than I ever expected it to be. The feeling of desolation mixed with wonder as you battle and explore across an alien planet alone remains completely intact.
