An overall great game that is fitting in any 360 owner's library.
The story finally lets all those who smashed their TV screens at the end of Halo 2's story rest easy as we all finally find out what happens to Master Chief and the rest of humanity. What made Halo 2's story great was the combination of two stories into one: Master Chief's and Humanity and The Arbiter and the Elites. In Halo 3 the Arbiter plays tag-along either as an AI or a player-controlled character, which seems to have me totally forget about the Elites' side of the story and forget about the Arbiter, an aspect I enjoyed greatly in Halo 2. Four player (if not more) online co-op should be run-of-the-mill in all future FPS campaigns.
The multiplayer sticks to its guns from Halo 2; returning veterans will feel right at home. While file share may define online gaming in the future, not much innovation seems to have been made to the FPS's. Forge is essentially a fancy word for map-editor, which in turn this map-editor is an update to custom game types. Though creating your own choke-points in zombie matches and race tracks around maps is enjoyable and fun, it seems to lack the true creativity a full create-a-map, like in the Timesplitters series, would have. Equipment is a great tool that adds to the strategies in gametypes (though Halo 3 is not the first game to do so). The infamous combos used in Halo 2 have been fixed, as well as some other fixes to weapons and vehicles; this time around the weapons all seem well balanced, with one not really commanding the field over the others. With new maps, gametypes, and updates (some to recurring complaints (melee)) on the way, Halo 3 will always have plenty on the table, always wanting you to come back for more.
It seems that Bungie might have fell short in making this THE game of this generation, and maybe could have done a little more to do so, but did not fall short of making it a worthwhile and memorable experience. A great game, a fantastic end to a great trilogy (without over or under-doing it) Halo 3 deserves to stand among the elite in Xbox 360's library.