Also:

In defense of the OP

http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simpleratings.asp?itemname

Metroid prime is 3rd best game of all time according to game rankings.

Halo is 8th.

Just wanted to point that out

I agree overall, and would like to add that IMO multiplayer FPSs are overrated.

Give me coop - now that is what I want in FPSs, unfortunately games that support coop mode are few and far between.

I hope Team Fortress 2 turns out to be everything I expect it to be. I am also casting an eye out for Army of Two.

If any of you know of some good coop games - either for PC or console, please let me know. I don't care how old the game is as long as there is coop. Probably my favorite coop experience of all has been Super Smash TV for the SNES - it's not a FPS, but it was a blast and the bodycounts add up far faster than any FPS I've ever played - including Serious Sam.

 I completely agree with the HL2 point, it is still one of my favorite games in general let alone FPS's which I usually don't consider my favorite genre. As for Halo1/2 doing poorly on PC there is truth to that but the PC is a different beast than the console.  I wouldn't say Halo1/2 are bland, they were still fun games.  But I think in comparison to the FPS offerings on the PC Halo pales in comparison to the Multiplayer community of Unreal or the awesome single player of HL2 but these are just my opinions. And this is only true on the PC, things are much different on the consoles where Halo is a top notch FPS. Just to be clear I think a similar comparison with MP would yield pretty much an identically unfavorable result for MP.

More on topic, MP has always been an oddity in the shooter genre and I can definately agree it is hard to compare the two since they are so different. However, I think that games like MP are going to be the future of FPS single player modes.  To bring the immersion to the next level FPS's are going to start having increasingly interactive environments, and while MP is behind some of the current FPS now it was well ahead of its time in regards to its style and concepts when it was released.   I am hoping that the increased immersion spurred on by games like MP will carry over and help benefit the multiplayer as well, but time will tell...

At the same time I think Halo was lackluster (for me at least) in its single player but truly revolutionary in its multiplayer for consoles.  I could go into more detail on this point but as I have stated before in this thread I think the Halo effect is well documented whereas I think I had to explain myself a bit more on the MP point.

 Anyways, both of these games do different aspects of modern FPS very very well.  And I think ideally the pedigree of these games in the future will have a solid offerings in both categories.

But yeah, thanks everyone for getting the thread back on track to what i wanted to discuss :)

..Probably because even though MP might get higher reviews, Halo, due to Multiplayer, has had people put litterally millions of hours of gameplay more into Halo than Metroid Prime.

That speaks volumes for playability - what's a fantastic 30 hour experience compared to an almost as fantastic experience for 5,000 hours?

Halo is Microsoft's FLAG ship game.
It's like mario or Zelda for MS.
Thats why I knew of Halo and never heard of Metriod.
I have never played a mario game, and I never played a Zelda game before I got a wii, but I knew about all these games from years before.

If Ninty advertises Metriod the way Halo 3 is being pushed by MS then people will hear about it.

Having said all that Multiplayer would of sealed Metriod 3's fate as a name to remember. Split screen Multiplayer is what consoles can do better then PC's.

On a side note : It's a pity no one remembers outcast which was a 3rd person shooter Adverture and one the best games I ever played, it used Voxels to amazing effect (for it's time :) ).

I think Sqrl is on the right track with the "maiming" comment.  Metroid, although it looks like an FPS and plays a little bit like an FPS, does not deliver typical FPS gameplay, at all.

Some may recall that when Metroid Prime came out there was a huge advertising blitz and between Metroid and Resident Evil 0, GameCube outsold Xbox and came quite close to matching Playstation 2 sales for November of 2002.  Then Metroid Prime 2's sales were very disappointing...why?  I believe people bought Metroid Prime, played it, and didn't like it because they were expecting more traditional FPS gameplay.  I even know one person who did just that - he bought a GCN for Metroid Prime and after trying it once or twice, never touched it again.

That's just anecdotal evidence, but I really believe that, like Sqrl said, people look to FPS for shooting, not puzzling and not adventuring.  They don't want to scour a huge open world for secrets, they want to go from point A to point B.  They don't want lock-on, they do want 20 guns that get more and more powerful.  They don't want to roll up into a ball, they want to pilot tanks and space ships.  They don't want scanning, they want to shoot stuff in the face.  They'd also like to have Co-op and deathmatches, but as someone else pointed out, those can be optional if the single player mode is really good.

I'm oversimplifying here, but the point is, Metroid really doesn't play like your basic FPS, and I think that kills its popularity and also stops people from comparing it to other FPS games.  Nintendo's lack of marketing and the GameCube's general lack of popularity didn't help either, but like I said, Metroid Prime was a system seller and Prime 2 was a (relative) flop.

 Yes you may be right. Just try not to judge others by taking your own behaviour as a standard.

I remember playing Metroid Prime and I didn't like it too much. Someone said the only way to make Metroid 3D was too make it an FPS. I disagree with that. I think it would have been a better game if it was 3rd person.