File this one under too long, didn't read (TL;DR). Mostly I just wanted to get it out of my system. The original retail release of "Destiny" was savaged by critics for it's lack of story and repetitive game play. Considering the reviews of repetitive, multi-player only games like "Titanfall" and later "Evolve", these reviews seem unfair today. Yet the Metacritic scores seem accurate in retrospect. This is a game with undeniably fun mechanics that ultimately provides an underwhelming experience, and in some cases a negative experience. The ultimate problem with "Destiny" in year one is the in-game reward system. Collecting weapons and armor is part of the game. Bungie made it that way. Finding and using new pieces of gear is fun, and "Destiny" has a plethora of interesting gear to find and use. When the reward system is part of the game, you do not win by beating the end boss, but instead you win by getting the end boss's rewards. For some reason, Bungie decided that the end boss's rewards should be distributed randomly, creating random winners and random losers. Back before December, Bungie was coming up against criticism for the #forever29 meme. Somehow Bungie was unaware that randomness meant some players might never receive meaningful rewards from beating the final boss. Bungie promised a fix for the next final boss, Crota, and players like me saw a much improved random reward system. However, I saw more than a few players on my friends list quit "Destiny" before Crota's arrival. For those who stayed, Bungie left nothing to chance, and players could also reach max level during the player versus player Iron Banner events. The latest expansion, House of Wolves, also ensures players can reach maximum level by earning one piece of armor each week from an arena even, Prison of Elders. Some players might take longer than others, and they might not like the rewards they receive, but all players are able to reach maximum level. Random rewards remains an issue in "Destiny". While beating the Prison of Elders activities will reward you with the highest level armor and weapons, most players do like this gear. The "real" reward is Etheric light. Nightfall supposedly rewards players with Etheric light. I have not seen any Etheric light from a Nightfall strike after 5 week's worth of strikes on all three characters. Etheric light is also rewarded in the hardest Prison of Elders activities and the Trials of Osiris. Trials of Osiris only rewards Etheric light to players who can successfully win 6 or more matches against randomly matched players. The results were obvious, with the 1% of highly skilled players swimming in Etheric light and most everyone else ignoring Trials of Osiris. Bungie again left nothing to chance, and the last Iron Banner event also yielded Etheric light. The random reward problem plagues weapons even more so than the reward problem with armor. The best weapons in the game are inarguably the raid weapons, dropped as randomly as the original Vault of Glass armor that caused the #forever29 problem. The exotics are just as random but at least their randomness is abrogated by Xur. One exotic Xur refuses to sell (at least since last September) is Gjallarhorn, a rocket launcher that does more damage than any other weapon in "Destiny". Randomness means some players will be rewarded with the best weapon after little to no effort and some players will never be rewarded with the best weapon. Year one was plagued by other issues. Bungie did not have player matchmaking for most of the year one content. After much protestation by the player community, Bungie added a matchmaking to a couple more activities, none of which give you raid legendaries, etheric light, or exotics. The problem is philosophical and not technical. The content for year one additions seemed lean to players. A battle raged between players who wanted to play the game their way and Bungie who wanted players to play the game Bungie's way. Every fix by Bungie would cause more problems, like how the auto rifle nerf just about benched auto rifles. The teeter-totter of fixes shows a game that is fundamentally broken and unfixable. Playing "Destiny" seems like madness. Maybe it is. The game is about receiving rewards and those rewards are not at all correlated to player effort. No other game has made players feel so heartbroken [i]after [/i]they defeat the final boss. We put up with this kind of madness because we believed in Bungie. The running and shooting parts of "Destiny" are fun. They should be, because "Destiny" is made by Bungie, the same studio that made "Halo" and "Halo" was nothing less than a cultural phenomenon that changed modern gaming shooters as much as the iPhone changed modern phones. Despite every misstep, Bungie said they were listening. Bungie did make changes, albeit begrudgingly. A lot of trust has been lost. Most of of my friends on "Destiny" pre-purchased all of the year one content. Back before last September, we believed in Bungie enough to make those future purchases. Year two is different. Year two is wait-and-see. Bungie needs to earn our trust back or for many of us, there will not be a year two.