I'm with you. To me the biggest innovation (besides console mp) was getting fps controls right for gamepads. I also like that it popularized a limited weapon carry. Health regen is a mixed bag for me, and it definitely got overused in other games of that era.

If I didn't have a PC at the time, I could see myself enjoying Halo more. When I got around to playing CE on xbox, I was underwhelmed. I thought Halo 2 was more fun, but the pop-in was so bad I think I skipped all the cutscenes. Like you said though, the mp was always a blast.

The weird sickening American patriotic feel was intentional and players that paid attention to the story knew they shouldnt cheer for it. Fallout is another series that did this, maybe to a much more obvious degree. I'm curious if you played the original games on or near release. They are definitely dated but they didn't feel worse than any other FPS of its time to me. Some of the old Medal of Honor and CoD games had literally no story at all, just multiple levels of run and gun the enemy.