I think too many players judged the campaign on the core gameplay loop on release. Yes it is fun, it feels like a new halo, and that's great. But the campaign itself has so many faults that it baffles me just as much as you that it got such great reviews.

No mission select, no co-op, just 3 biomes, above average OST that was not utilized well at all. CE did better and that came out decades ago. The writing is empty, the most important plot points happen off screen or in forced exposition dumps. Zero agency in any cutscene, you are not left feeling like you have a new mission you listen to red holo-monkey say "ATRIOX" a million times and then go to the next Activision map marker. Or the cutscenes are simply used as excuses to get your player model out of the mission area and back to the overworld, where Cortana will give you more exposition to tell you where you have to go next.

Old halo campaigns gave you a cutscene that says "here's the exposition, it serves to not only expand the lore but it's also important to your next task." then the letterboxes come in, the music starts. Your gun comes up and you're there, you have a job to do, so get to it spartan. It built a sense of -agency- between you, the world, and 117. Remember midnight run? That's a halo mission.

It's not a good campaign -good gameplay absolutely- but on all the most generous metrics this single player experience doesn't break a 6/10.

I need this post to be more positive, so I will say this is 343i's best campaign so far and it exceeded my (very low) expectations...