When it comes to a story and a weapon sandbox 343 has them on that. Besides CE and ODST Bungie's Halo's were random for the story. Halo 2 and 3 didn't get a focus until your half way in the game and Reach was completely random until the last two levels. With Halo 4 you have a clear focus until you hit new objectives. It wasn't you're doing something one level and the next it's some random event. For the sandbox Bungie just did a shit job with it after CE. It has a lot of useless weapons. They went full retard on the duel wielding weapons and when it comes to the assault rifle it's just shit. Non-power weapon wise the only ones that can do something are the precision ones. With Halo 4 every weapon is useful. In Bungie's Halo's if you have an assault rifle going up against a person with a precision weapon you are screwed unless you can do the melee thing. With Halo 4 it's a lot more balanced.