If we're being nitpicky about little details, how about the fact that 343i loves to give blue/minor Elites swords? Annoys me to no end. I don't care about any fan theory, because from a purely game design and visual identity perspective it's broken. Some of the most intense moments in Halo are when you spot a high ranking Elite that begins charging at you with a sword. A lot of that forward thinking and prioritization of targets elements seem gone purely for the sake of change.
That bolded suspicion almost never makes sense. Making games is expensive and time-consuming, and you may not like a decision, or its effects, regardless of what the game is, bit the bolded statement is almost never true. I'm sure it is sometimes, but rationally speaking, very, very rarely.
Our AI and encounters take place in a bigger sandbox than before, and I've talked about verticality a lot as it relates to player-controlled characters, but it's also true that path and route finding are now a bigger part of AI enemy behavior and so their abilities, techniques and weapons have been positioned, triggered and used with that in mind.
I am REALLY enjoying the way our AI bad guys fight, and when you use your squad properly, either with your own squad commands or your real friends online, you'll see scenarios play out in really interesting new ways that it's hard to judge through simple observation - you start to get a
feel for it as early as the first mission.
Anyway I can't tell you that you should like it, but I suspect you'll get a different vibe from playing.