A good game, but not amazing.
Graphics:
Not that good. There was a supposed upgrade from Halo 3 to Halo: Reach, but in all honesty, at some times the game looks worse than Halo 3. The game was given a more cartoony effect. The human vehicles especially look much less realistic and much more cartoony. You can see a graphics comparison between the two games here http://www.gamespot.com/features/6276437/index.html .
Ever since Halo 2, the Halo games have suffered from some pretty big rendering and frame rate problems, and Reach doesn't seem to be the exception. To be fair, there were a couple fights that were larger than was possible in earlier Halo games. (None as big as the hype boasted) The graphics aren't terrible, but when games like Gears of War 2 boast more fluid graphics, you have to question what Bungie was thinking releasing a game with at least the rendering problems this game has. It ticks me off when I'm watching a cutscene or driving a vehicle into an area, and mountains/enemies/characers/weapons/buildings to draw themselves on the screen. Halo 2 and 3 were really bad in this area, and it hasn't gotten any better.
That said, once everything is rendered, the scenery in the levels looks very pretty, especially the more jungle like levels. The environments are varied and the first level even has some ostrich like animals running around. The new weapons look cool as well and the new loaded powers are not only useful in game, but also look pretty decent. Next,
Controls:
Good. Generally the controls are a hybrid between Halo 2 and Halo 3. The addition of the new "loadouts" featured in the game moved some of the controls that people were familiar with to new spots. To me personally, this creates an effect that makes me feel like there is one less button on the controller than there should be since something has to be mapped to the out of reach "B" button. (Switching grenade types), though it is nice having the melee assigned to the "R bumper" which makes multiplayer much better. So what is the bottom line on the controls? They work.
Gameplay:
If you've ever played a Halo game before, you know exactly what to expect. On the one hand, if something isn't broke, don't fix it, but at the same time, something can be said for innovation. The "innovation" part of Reach is the new armor loadout feature. Halo 3 had the addition of items you can throw out that do various things such as a gravity lift or a bubble shield.
Gone are the thrown items from 3 and in their place are these different skills that you can spawn with on multiplayer or pick up on campaign. The most common one is a sprint. While I would hope that lore wise, the Spartans would have this ability without needing special equipment to do it HAS been missing from the other Halo games. (Though I would have preferred it be built in to every loaded in the same way that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare does it.)
There are quite a few different loadouts, but two of the cooler ones are the jet pack and the armor lock. The jet pack is exactly what you would expect it to be. A jump jet you can use to navigate the map in much different ways than normal, often giving you an advantage in position. You definitely feel awesome jump jetting around a building with a plasma sword and lunge killing someone from a direction that normal troops couldn't approach from.
The other is the armor lock which makes you invincible for as long as you use it, but also it makes you immobile. It is very useful when you are walking around with teammates and you enter a room, get hit with heavy fire and activate. Your teammates can hit the opponents while they are distracted and if they choose to hit your teammates then you can deactivate the ability and finish off your foes.
These loadouts are useful and fun and add a lot to the gameplay, but I don't know if you can say that this addition alone is enough to say the game is innovative. Generally it is still just inheriting Halo 3's gameplay. Needless to say, that isn't a bad thing, but it does hamper the game from being as awesome as the pre-game press had hinted at.
Multiplayer:
Same old. Same old. With the addition of a new multiplayer game type and a new voting system. The new multiplayer game type is called Invasion and is pretty sweet. Its basically just a forced assault on a position to capture one of two points, then a forced attack on another two points, then finally a snatch and grab of a "core" (basically just a flag cap). The teams take turns playing offense and defense with the Elites and the Spartans (Which have differences in this game) and their different loadouts. Some of the loadouts are shared between the two, but some are unique to the species you are playing. If you can play invasion with a couple friends, this game type will almost certainly become your favorite choice.
However, even this awesome game type is marred by the addition of the new voting system that has been added to the online matchmaking mode. In previous Halo games your party is assigned a map and you can choose to veto it. If you veto, then you are forced to choose the next random map. However, you still choose what type of mode you wish you play from lists like "Slayer" "Lone Wolf" and even just choose to do random game types.
In Reach, you can choose, for instance, Slayer, and you are presented with 3 different options of slayer. Such as Snipers, Regular Team Slayer, or Swat. (Other variations include Slayer DMR which is similar to Slayer BR from 3, or Elite slayer where you use the Elites and their ablilites). The problem here is that people generally tend to want to play Swat or Snipers. Many times you will just want to play regular slayer and end up playing snipers and swat until you just get frustrated and join a different game mode. This problem is especially significant when you wish to play a game of Invasion. When you pick Invasion one of the voting choices is always a variant called Invasion Slayer which is really just a slayer game with random weapons/vehicles spawning if you cap a point. It has become an apparent problem for many people that if you hate Invasion slayer, you will almost certainly have to group up with a full party of people in order to sway the votes and many people love Invasion slayer. From my experience it is a love/hate thing. Not many people go without opinion on Invasion slayer.
Bottom line, the multiplayer is a lot of fun, especially when you play with friends, but the matching interface is still a little broken.
Story:
Now, this is the part of the game I have the biggest problem with. Bungie I think tried to pull off an impossible task when undertaking this game. There are 6 main characters all defending this planet called "Reach" that everyone who knows anything about Halo knows will be decimated in this game.
*SPOILER ALERT*
This being said, you should know going in that each of the main characters (Or at least most of them) will die during the story. However, in a game that is probably 5-6 hours long on the normal difficulty, it is pretty much impossible for the game to relate to you anything about the 6 different main characters. Small pieces of their personality can be pulled from the game, but when you have such a short game focused on so many characters, the odds that you will care about them very much is VERY little. You start the game knowing nothing about them and before you really get to learn anything they start dying off and you are supposed to feel bad about it I assume. Maybe the Halo books delve deeper into the protagonists and their backstories, but this game doesn't flesh anyone out. While epic things may be happening, you can never really "connect" with the story.
*END SPOILER ALERT*
Another debatable problem is that this game is really a service to Halo fanboys. If you don't know anything about the previous Halo games, almost all of the story will be lost on you and all of the fan service will be. In fact, if you don't know the story later on, one certain piece of the story will seem somewhat ludicrous.
Bottom Line:
If you are looking for a shooter with an awesome story, this probably isn't the game for you. However, if you were a fan of the previous games campaigns, you might love this game. It is more of the same storytelling technique and follows the same type of pacing as the other Halo games (The reason I personally didn't like it.
If you are looking for a sweet multiplayer shooter and have a couple friends to play with, this is definitely at least a rent. A lot of fun can be had with the multiplayer and the more friends you have to vote on the map types, the more likely you will be to get into a game that you guys want to play.
To fans of the other Halo games, it doesn't matter what I say because you probably already have it and are living it up. If for some reason you don't already have it, pick it up, you'll probably love it.
Personal Notes:
To anyone that thinks my review is harsh or unfairly biased in some way against the game because I wasn't a huge fan of the others, my Gamertag is Pwnagin. Get in a multiplayer match with me and you'll hear how much fun I can have with the games multiplayer aspect. I get really into it. I'll be yelling up a storm and laughing and joking around. This game is a really fun game and I personally enjoy the multiplayer a lot. The campaign leaves a lot to be desired from my personal opinion, and it would have been nice to see more "new" stuff instead of copy/pasting Halo 3, but it is still, despite those flaws, an entertaining experience.
I also would like to note that I enjoyed the super-difficult challenge that legendary offers. I haven't beaten it, but it is definitely tough if you aren't playing Co-op. I personally enjoyed the challenege on Legendary more because I was focusing less on the story and more on the great gameplay mechanics the game has used for years. The loadouts mean a lot more and you have to be much more careful. No matter how I came across, I enjoy this game and you should too.