Please tell me that the you also hear that despite being scratched, the disks are also playable...
That is mostly what I read on the web..usually the discs are playable in any case apparantly.
If I was you after I got my fill for a few days I would still send it back to MS if the scratches are bad. Just would set my mind at ease.
More of my impressions of the game after two levels of SP campaign on heroic:
The game is no Gears. I feel like I'm kind of dutifully trudging through and not too much else.
I cant see myself replaying the campaign much, if at all, either. Whereas Gears, I have probably beaten 6 or 7 times. And even beat on insane. I likely wont bother with legendary on H3.
Also the games visuals seemingly have become less impressive again. When the game becomes more restricteed to indoor areas, it gets a lot less graphically impressive.
There's just a lot of weird, broke-ish gameplay too. The game feels much more stale and game-ish than Gears. The vaunted AI, is probably on par with Gears or less imo. Very rarely will the enemy force the issue on you. A couple times I noticed, that for example Brutes, in a section where you fight a dozen+, would almost exclusively approach from the right side of a certain obstacle. I noticed them veer to the right for no apparant reason virtually every time, almost like a AI glitch. Another time, I was trapped behind a large sort of train car. It was a pretty dicey situation where I was heavily outnumbered. Accustomed to Gears fantastic AI and also the reputation of Halo, I kept constantly checking behind me to see if any of these "smart" enemies would try to get behind me, instead of approaching the side I was facing every time. Didn't happen. The close quarters melee confrontation system also pales in comparison to Gears. The game simply feels dumber and less dynamic than Gears.
I seem to keep going back and forth on the game, for a while there I was really liking it again, now I've slipped back into a more negative opinion. So who knows, I will probably write my impression a few more times in this thread, and it might change again. Certain things I'm certain wont change, though.
But overall, the franchise has been supplanted in creativity and advancement by Gears, imo. Gears of War 2 will be a better game than H3, I feel pretty confident of that now. Halo 3 almost feels dated, there's no other way to put it. Dated often describes the graphics and animation as well (although sometimes, it can be a very pretty game).
The game also suffers from weapon overload. There are so many different weapons, most times I cant be arsed with them, and just stick with the marine weapons as much as ammo supply allows. I still haven't, for example, even used many of the new special equipment (the throw shields and that sort of thing). They're just not useful enough to bother with. Another example, many times detaching a turret and using it is simply more pain in the ass than it's worth. You're often better off just sticking with your standard weaponry.
Oh and the enemy chatter, is still rather cliched and stupid. Where again, it was one of the more awesome things about part 1, they have turned it into something pedestrian and almost obnoxious.
All that said, it's still solid fun.
Right now I'd be leaning towards scoring the game in the 7, probably 8 range...
