What is your opinion of each Halo title and the series as a whole?

[Reasonable]

CollectiveCynic said:

d21lewis said:
^^
My assumption is that Halo 2 was designed to be played online so some compensation had to be made. I don't know. I'm not a big multi-player Halo gamer. The game thrived online like nothing else until this year so, I guess they did something right.

Actually Halo 2 was rushed.

http://ducain.org/archive_forum/viewtopic.php?p=811320

In some form or other every major Halo title has had a deadline dictating things.  Halo CE had to launch at a certain time with Xbox hence some of the questionable level designs.  Halo 2 as you report and Halo 3, while perhaps the least rushed and most polished, clearly had to launch early in 360 lifecycle no matter what - hence the somewhat Halo 2.5 aspects of the engine vs the much more expanded engine that seems to be under Reach.

Such rushes don't always result in bad games if the talent is there.  Half Life 2 is I think the most amazing case of a huge title literally being created from a similar bunch of demo levels and ideas in a very short time - something the hacking of Valve's network exposed to the public.