I beat the campaign on Normal difficultly tonight. My 'final' thoughts:
may contain spoilers!!
Best line(s):
Cortana: So, how do you plan on getting out of here?
MasterChief: Figured I'd shoot my way out. Ya know, mix it up a little.
Well, after playing the campaign, most of my initial impressions are the same. Favorite weapon(s) was carrying around the (formerly) mounted weapons, and the flamethrower near the end. The needler was pretty cool for it's tracking ability, and Dual Plasma rifles are rather handy. When I was out of ammo, the GravHammer was always nice to use. The scorpion tank kicked ass, and the Ghost was fun in the early bits of the game. The other vehicles, including the famous, yet floaty handling, Warthog sucked.
Story: I can't comment on this very much, since I never played the first 2 games. I was pretty lost through most of it, plot wise, so I had lots of 'WTF is Going on?!?' moments. I suppose it was good. Voice acting was very good. I did notice in the credits the following names: Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, and Adam Baldwin. (Firefly cast members) I don't recall recognizing any of them though.
Technical: Looks great, even if it's not HD. (Check the bungie page for details on that). Some pretty nice looking scenery, MC looked good, lighting was nice, sound was kick ass.
Gameplay: Meh. I still don't get what the big deal is. No tactics to speak of, just a run and gun, and not a very good one at that. At least it was fairly short and the levels fairly easy to navigate. With the exception of the 'Ass Level', (Cortana's rescue mission). That was just plain frustrating, and not to mention ugly. The 'escape' at the end (driving the warthog to get to the frigate) was just plain stupid and drug on far too long.
Multiplayer: Still haven't tried that yet. So, I guess this isn't that final of a final opinion. Heh.