Ignore the complaints about microtransactions, ignore the theorizing about the devs' political views, ignore the people complaining that they're adding a battle royale mode that may or may not be fun. Listen to your old friend Dog Toilet Soup when he says: "game and map design that punishes the use of portals in the 'Halo with portals' game makes for a dull sequel." Install it, try a few rounds, uninstall for a couple months and wait for the inevitable rework when player counts drop.

it's far from a perfect game: it drags a little in the early-middle (possibly intentional), it has some mechanics that you'll never use, and has some rap that makes you jump out of your seat and yell

i recommend this game to everyone on earth tho

You know, despite being a borderline dead game in a crowded market, Bloodhunt is... kind of a lot of fun? It feels pretty casual, like a version of Fornite Zero Build with the ability to run up walls, but I think the gunplay is better. Most lobbies are like 90% bots but they're small to begin with so when you get to the last circles and are fighting real people, it's got enough of the BR tension to justify itself.

the pvp is probably the best since halo 3, or will be once it's out of beta and there's more maps and modes and maybe guns. but it's in beta at the time of this review and the battle pass is weak, the customization options are weak, the map selection is a little weak (though all the maps themselves are very good and coherent).

the optimization is absolute garbage. on an rx 580 with the absolute lowest settings i get 25-30 fps on a lot of maps, and the dropped frames make staying on target kinda tough. game doesn't even look that good either so idk what the problem is. my friends with better hardware have no issues though so ymmv

apart from that, the stuff that matters is all there and all great. I love the weapon balance, the gun lockers with respawn timers make it easier to find guns when you're new to a map, and yeah, whatever, it's halo. i like splitgate better right now but this is really good too.

The game really shines once you get to the ranked 2v2 and 3v3 games, but the unranked modes are pretty fun too. When you start out, you get matchmade against basically babies or bots or something and they never use portals, so you get a lot of practice zipping in and out and getting free kills. Then, once you hit ranked, the game hits a different level. Map awareness means something else when someone can appear on the other side of the map at any time.

Some modes work (Takedown, 2v2 TDM) and some really dont (KotH). It has goof-off game types like gun game from COD and zombies from Halo as well when you need a break from more high intensity modes. The movement feels fine (a touch too floaty) and the shooting is great.

It's fun and you should try it I guess.