Blatantly rushed and unfinished, too many smaller but obvious bugs and weird design choices that when summed up drag the whole package down.* This clearly was not meant to release this early.
Atrocious audio mixing. Music volume seems to be a suggestion.
Speaking of music, it's playing nearly constantly as if they're trying to keep you stimulated and paying attention. There are fewer moments of peace, which devalues the soundtrack's impact. Important moments lose their audio glimmer.
Guns sound very limp and too quiet, it just makes them feel terrible to use.
The new cutscenes are prerendered and locked to 30 FPS. Using frame generation also destroys them, because for some reason they are not excluded. The choreography is awkward most of the time if not straight up awful. New voice acting is off-putting at best and terribly directed at worst. Cutscenes being prerendered also means all your skins lose value.
Mid performance. Standard UE5 stuttering and unstable frame times, grainy look and general weird visual muddiness. Forced and completely overtuned chromatic aberration. I should not need to do INI tweaks for this in 2026. And no matter what and how I tweak the settings, mouse input feels sluggish.

At this price tag, skip this remake and just play the original in MCC or on original Xbox hardware.
Maybe after patches it'll be worth the asking price. As of now, absolutely not. The only audiences that can benefit from this product are Playstation players.

I really wanted to like this and went into it with an open mind but I was just left with continuous disappointment.

*Examples:
1. Ragdoll bones do not collide with each other, corpses just fold like laundry.
2. Important NPCs like Johnson and Keyes are just immortal. They respawn in place with a very jarring yellow respawn effect and no other animation, just like coop players. This also means events like Keyes dying on Truth & Reconciliation are no longer game over states.
3. They seem to have added a noticeable amount of extra enemies to most encounters to compensate for the Assault Rifle being significantly buffed. Makes the game feel like a horde shooter.
4. Since the "core" of the game is based on Halo Reach, we see a lot of reused animations and NPC behaviours from that game. The most significant of all is Elites and their awkward instant punch that deals a lot of damage (and one shots you on higher difficulties)
5. For some reason Jackals with Plasma Pistols can one shot you.
6. Addition of invisible walls or out of bounds timed kill zones nearly everywhere.
7. Enemy AI is just broken - significantly less perceptive of the player and it's common for them to deaggro and return to patrolling for some reason mid-combat.
8. Physics objects (includes props, weapons, ragdolls) will just randomly kill you when walking over or near them sometimes.

Blatantly rushed and unfinished, too many smaller but obvious bugs and weird design choices that when summed up drag the whole package down.* This clearly was not meant to release this early. Atrocious audio mixing. Music volume seems to be a suggestion. Speaking of music, it's playing nearly constantly as if they're trying to keep you stimulated and paying attention. There are fewer moments of peace, which devalues the soundtrack's impact. Important moments lose their audio glimmer. Guns sound very limp and too quiet, it just makes them feel terrible to use. The new cutscenes are prerendered and locked to 30 FPS. Using frame generation also destroys them, because for some reason they are not excluded. The choreography is awkward most of the time if not straight up awful. New voice acting is off-putting at best and terribly directed at worst. Cutscenes being prerendered also means all your skins lose value. Mid performance. Standard UE5 stuttering and unstable frame times, grainy look and general weird visual muddiness. Forced and completely overtuned chromatic aberration. I should not need to do INI tweaks for this in 2026. And no matter what and how I tweak the settings, mouse input feels sluggish. At this price tag, skip this remake and just play the original in MCC or on original Xbox hardware. Maybe after patches it'll be worth the asking price. As of now, absolutely not. The only audiences that can benefit from this product are Playstation players. I really wanted to like this and went into it with an open mind but I was just left with continuous disappointment. *Examples: 1. Ragdoll bones do not collide with each other, corpses just fold like laundry. 2. Important NPCs like Johnson and Keyes are just immortal. They respawn in place with a very jarring yellow respawn effect and no other animation, just like coop players. This also means events like Keyes dying on Truth & Reconciliation are no longer game over states. 3. They seem to have added a noticeable amount of extra enemies to most encounters to compensate for the Assault Rifle being significantly buffed. Makes the game feel like a horde shooter. 4. Since the "core" of the game is based on Halo Reach, we see a lot of reused animations and NPC behaviours from that game. The most significant of all is Elites and their awkward instant punch that deals a lot of damage (and one shots you on higher difficulties) 5. For some reason Jackals with Plasma Pistols can one shot you. 6. Addition of invisible walls or out of bounds timed kill zones nearly everywhere. 7. Enemy AI is just broken - significantly less perceptive of the player and it's common for them to deaggro and return to patrolling for some reason mid-combat. 8. Physics objects (includes props, weapons, ragdolls) will just randomly kill you when walking over or near them sometimes.