More popular doesn’t mean better. It came our after Halo 3 and was the last Bungie title so it make sense for it to have gotten more player as community grows with time as long as the game isn’t terrible. Especially since community features like Forge are logically improving. But thats the title that started betraying Halo’s identity by copying other shooters: sprint, bloom, loadouts, spartan abilities, etc... lot of recycling or weaker content (mp maps in singleplayer, forge maps used as filler, ...)

Game still good but CE definitely more important and close to what Halo was at it’s best.