One of the Xbox finest turns out to be just an average sci-fi shooter for Halo 1 geeks.
The game's been improved on nearly every element especially multiplayer. There are cool guns, and now you can dual wield most of the pistols and rifles, cool enemies, cool vehicles and cool locales. The new graphics are cool and even Master Chief is twice the cooler than previously. Yup, the game's so cool that you just have to play it... ok, seriously now.
Visuals really got a lot better with more shiny shader effects or nice camouflage look. There is some pretty advanced bump mapping, character models are more complex and just about everything looks nicer.
Game mechanics stay true to the original and there's not much of a change here. You drive vehicles the same strange way as in Halo 1 and exterminate your enemies with similar tactics. AI got perhaps slightly better but I didn't notice a huge improvement over the first adventure.
Finally there is online competitive multiplayer over Xbox LIVE with variety of modes and I have to admit some of them like oddball are really fun to play. I wouldn't call it the best multiplayer game of all, but it's solid and people are actually still playing it.
Where the game falls is totally boring storyline, repetitiveness of gameplay (when you think this is finally the last room filled with aliens, there are another doors leading to something looking exactly the same) and overall lack of hmm... thrill. Some say the campaign is short with lame ending. Well, for me it was quite lengthy considering I was bored to death at times, and as for the ending it's a nice cliffhanger with cool line by Master Chief, the thing is you just don't feel much of a conclusion to this iteration of the series. It's like in Matrix Reloaded where you suddenly see "to be continued" and have to wait long months for the rest of the story... not that you necessarily care.
Is Halo 2 a failure? No, it's a good Xbox shooter, nothing more and nothing less. Bungie didn't take much chances with this game and that's why it's a bit disappointing. It reminds me of Quake 4 which was basically Doom 3 in Quake universe only a lot worse.