The game was mediocre at best.. 9/10 and 9.5/10 are beyond biased and paid IMO.. People give Medal of Honor Warfighter for example 4.5/10 and 4/10 and say how it's a shooting gallery and the story is weak but they give Halo 4 9/10 and 9.5/10? Are you kidding me.
Yes, Halo 4 is seriously polished (not a surprise since they had 5 years to make it). Everything was smooth and tops in terms of visuals and execution but the game is meh. It got real boring real fast. Basically the whole game comes down to go flip that switch, kill a bunch of same foes, flip that other switch, kill some more foes, and flip the 3rd switch. Rinse and repeat.
There were 3 parts in the game that had slight variety with flying and driving but very little. Overall it was done way too safe and with no thrills. The story is also pretty weak and convoluted and unless you are deep into Halo universe and you read and watched all of the Halo animated features and books you don't get anything in the game in terms of what's going on.
Multiplayer is pretty much the same thing we had before but with a bit more customization and a few more guns. I don't see what's majorly different from any other Halo game.
SpartanOps is a copy of SpecOps from Call of Duty and is really more go kill those guys there, destroy 3 objectives and get a pick up.
I finished Halo 4 on Legendary and the video at the end showing Master Chief's eyes was the highlight of the game
This is 7/10 game. Nowhere near close to 9/10 or 9.5/10 unless you don't care about immersive and great story, diverse and unique gameplay and overall fresh experience.