If the Halo Series is considered to be Average or Worse, then why are there still so many fans of it?

The gameplay and story is nothing new, just retextured and pushed out. Only thing new is Chief getting new armor every time he sleeps, somehow.
This wont stop people from playing it though, so many people hate on COD yet play it daily. People dont care if they are told they are wrong. I personally like halo, but if you buy 3 you pretty much know how the next 2 games go.

It's mob mentality and sensationalist advertising. It's the exact same phenomena that drives the Call of Duty series to remain afloat, celebrity endorsements, flashy commercials, and contests and giveaways. All that's needed is a few solid titles early in the franchise, and a Developer can ride the wave of the franchise name alone, even if the games lack quality or substance.

See the latest Final Fantasy games.
They're been getting so much worse since 9.

People are fans of it in hopes that the core Halo 2 feel will return (this include gameplay AND the in game ranking system that made it hyper competitive). Halo 2 and even 3 had the most skilled gameplay out of any shooter I have ever played (its not the type of game where you sit in the corner and rack up 40 kills). The weapon balancing in those games was unparalleled, the maps were unparalleled, and the community was great. This was all lost with Halo Reach. They changed the core gameplay by adding loadouts and giving you passive armor abilities. But worst of all, they took away the 1-50 ranking system. Halo 4 fell into the same boat as halo reach.

Fans are waiting for the franchise to return to its roots because the core gaming experience of Halo 2/3 is timeless and will always be fun (like counter strike and/or team fortress). Its a shame that Halo Reach and Halo 4 had to blemish the series' legacy. Im holding out hope for a Halo 2 Anniversary done right, or else I will never be buying an Xbox One

@FromTheDepths Actually several magazine articles (check out PCGamer for example) addressed the future of gaming, especially for the PC side. If you / anyone not been keeping the score, the Game Marketspace DIED badly during all this economic turmoil. MANY MANY MANY A-AA+ shops are out of business or sold out. Hell LucasArts, one of the oldest and best makers of MANY MANY classic and recent titles DISNEY FIRED EVERYONE when they bought out LucasStudios. Even Microsoft dropped making PC gaming! and has 'outsourced' alot of the work to other studios (i.e. yeah your all fired, who can take this game and make it work for 1/10th the cost?).

So there is a big issue here of who is left to develop (very few) and worst off how many have the finances (remember they have to spend each month on the electricity, computer, employee salaries, hardware to store the data, the studios to record voices, etc.) to actually DEVELOP these games up front is even smaller. So your stuck with the big AAA+ game studios (Origins formerly EA, Valve, etc.) who look at this and see the costs and basically all said : Okay we can spend $1M to make a game that is risky - edgy and 'unknown' and can be a flop ORRRRRRR we can spend $650K and make #2 of game XYZ with just some new addons and DLCs to keep it going. Reminder: ALOT of the people in the Game Industry NOW are from the Entertainment Industry whom brought you Aliens 5, Die Hard 5, Rocky 6, etc. are the decision makers hearing this and making the obvious answer "okay wel here is 150K get started and we will see if we will fund the rest later or outsource it on the cheap and , marketting here is 300K to start 'selling' the title.. "

Honestly since the whole move to MMO gameplay is the 'mainstream' I stopped buying games for a while now. The studios won't keep hackers off the games which just spoils it, or worse the 'matching' system FAILS bad (OMG first time I played Titanfall - FIRST TIME- whole other team was all Level 15, and the BETA was only release 15hours prior!!!) and your stuck playing again Pro/Pro-AM Gamers whom wipe you off the map repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly F! THIS! click... Single Player isn't what it used to be (really 5 or so hours game play out of COD:GHOST in SP mode? really?!?!) and the studios are pushing crap out without really giving it a good QA (HEY Battlefield team - How's that lawsuit against you coming along- IDJIOTS!!). I was on the BF4 Beta team and we can ALL recount how many funny ways that damn BOAT would land ontop of buildings or in the middle of the street, but when I played TitanFall, it was like - this is BETA? WHERE? I see NOTHING wrong here.. how is this BETA?!? until of course I kept being matched against the AMPros whom I saw later on Twitch/etc. showing how they played TitalFall and was like - well no freaken wonder I was getting my butt waxed even though I maxed out everything.

From Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_4

1UP.com reviewer Jose Otero was critical of Halo 4's story, writing that the ending of the game "doesn't make a lot of sense". He also remarked that while the narrative tied the main plot lines together well, it was disappointing to see some of the smaller story points were ignored entirely.[7] Both G4 and Official Xbox Magazine agreed that the plot became convoluted on occasions and might be difficult to understand for new players of the franchise.[185][191] Michael Gapper of Computer and Video Games drew a comparison between Halo 4 and Halo 2. He stated that the hardware limitations of the Xbox 360 had negatively impacted Halo 4's campaign, in the same way that they had throttled Bungie's ambitions for Halo 2 on the original Xbox. He explained that although the game was visually stunning, this had detracted from the scale and spectacle that was present in Halo 3's campaign. He found the spaces within the campaign to be narrow and constrained which led to a lack of tactical options in encounters.[181]

Initial reception of Spartan Ops was mixed; some reviewers expressed their disappointment in Spartan Ops replacing the cooperative Firefight mode.[7][186][192] Criticisms were aimed at the brevity of missions and a lack of replayability.[19][187] Despite any shortcomings, IGN said the mode was a must-play for the "incredible pre-episode cinematics" which open up "a number of interesting narrative possibilities for future episodes and seasons."[19]

People are fans of it in hopes that the core Halo 2 feel will return (this include gameplay AND the in game ranking system that made it hyper competitive). Halo 2 and even 3 had the most skilled gameplay out of any shooter I have ever played (its not the type of game where you sit in the corner and rack up 40 kills). The weapon balancing in those games was unparalleled, the maps were unparalleled, and the community was great. This was all lost with Halo Reach. They changed the core gameplay by adding loadouts and giving you passive armor abilities. But worst of all, they took away the 1-50 ranking system. Halo 4 fell into the same boat as halo reach.

Fans are waiting for the franchise to return to its roots because the core gaming experience of Halo 2/3 is timeless and will always be fun (like counter strike and/or team fortress). Its a shame that Halo Reach and Halo 4 had to blemish the series' legacy. Im holding out hope for a Halo 2 Anniversary done right, or else I will never be buying an Xbox One

Posted this again because this is the real reason that their is hate for halo 4

Fun fact: The 8th entry into the Mario Party franchise sold more titles then Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite COMBINED.

Therefore, I conclude Mario Party is a at least twice as beloved as one of the most innovative PC franchises in the past decade.

It comes down to fanboyism. Plain and simple.

I love the gameplay of it. And gameplay definitely changes from game to game. I hate how people say the gameplay doesn't change. Its definitely similar, thats why its the same franchise, but with that logic halo 4 is just an HD re-skinned version of Halo 1.

You cant possibly have played halo reach and halo 4 and think they're identical. Every time the new Halo comes out people love it because you get to master a new game. You're already familiar with the controls and gameplay, but everythings new, from the weapons, to the maps, to the vehicles; its a whole new experience.

Granted people get tired of a certain type of gameplay, but 4 million people still bought the game. Its addictingly fun.

and some people dont like the changes from game to game, and they sometimes get a little mad.

but yeah fps Single Player needs to get its shit together

Why? It sells. Innovative titles, historically, DO NOT SELL WELL, even when they are well received. Hence why devs just keep trying to copy the CoD formula, because even if we yell "WE'RE SICK OF IT", we still buy it.

That's more of a personal thing. I loved the campaigns of mw1 and 2 and played them over and over. I loved going back through such a fantastic storyline, because that and the special ops missions were a nice break from the chaos of multiplayer. Campaigns have been ok as of late, but not like the old ones. I guess it's like aliens or the matrix. Can't really capture that lightning in a bottle again.

But most people don't care, which is why I said it's more personally. Only like 20% of halo 4 players finished the campaign.

If you don't like it then don't buy it. The best way to tell a company your opinion is to use your wallet ie buy it or don't buy it.

Bottom line is I like halo, I know halo will be good no matter what, so I buy halo.