The thing is, this remarkable and top-notch story is completely absent from the game itself. A player who doesn't hop onto his laptop to read through pages of lore will never know about the experiments going on at the Ishtar Sink and the Vex's terrifying power to simulate reality itself - including recursive simulations of the simulation itself ad infinitum. There is community speculation that a Warmind eventually allowed these simulated scientists to enter the Vex network and eventually seeded the Exo race as a way to counter them.
You can go through every mission, Strike and Raid in the game and never learn the significance of the Hive's swords. How those blades are the exact opposite of guns - unlike guns, they don't damage at a distance. Their violence is intimate and feeds the weapon, sharpening it over time. The overtones of how the sword symbolizes what the Hive are and stand for is poetic and beautiful, but absent from the game.
The entirety of the Vault of Glass' commendable lore is hidden. Kabr the Legionless crafting the Relic out of a Vex's reality-distorting flesh and his own Light. The teammates forever lost to time - with no record of having ever existed. Ensuing paranoia leading to Super Good Advice.
The damn history of the Tower's factions is obscure. For practical purposes, Factions are just different colors and different gear. When you read about their distinct political perspectives, they come to life. Or about Shaxx and Saladin disagreeing at critical times during humanity's struggle to hold the line at the Last City.
It's a damn shame. The lore is there. It's better than the vast majority of games. But when I say it's there, "there" is somewhere else. Ultimately the game's campaign does not live up to the potential of the available lore. It doesn't even come close. It doesn't even try.