But is marketing to the casual gamer a bad thing? The problem with the idea that games must be 100% balanced to appease the non-casual gamer is, at its core, implausible. Starcraft attempted it, and had the worst breakout of people leaving - both pros and casual gamers. A balanced game, truthfully balanced, is little to no fun; it becomes too much like chess. Now, that being said, imbalance is often viewed the wrong way - it isn't always negative, in fact, imbalance should be supported. Using the classic fantasy RPG archetypes as an example:
The warrior's hardiness and damage output is imbalanced, but to make up for this he lacks in others that a rogue or a wizard might excel in. All classes are 'broken' in their specialized fields while retaining weaknesses in others, and so it achieves an idea of perfect imbalance.
But, if that is not what you were referring to (i.e. player skill and equipment given) I will say this: just because a pro player feels an element is broken or over powered does not mean it is. Taking the underslung grenade launcher in Modern Warfare 2, it was by all means a 'broken' weapon. It nearly always got the kill, took little to no practice to aim, and was available to all weapons with the ability to pick up ammo from corpses it could, in theory, fire indefinitely. However, it is just a way for the new player to stand up to the professionals. Broken weapons that take 'no skill' are there for a reason - because, if you notice, none of the proclaimed 'pro' MW2 players used the noob-tube because there were better strategies and ways of nullifying its effects. That's part of gaining experience in a game as a player: you learn more tricks, pick up more skills, and your general knowledge of situations grows to the point where things you deemed broken are now easily beaten (i.e. the weapons mentioned in the video above).
And I am sorry to say that this multiplayer really isn't that much different from earlier ones. It took a lot of the issues with it, but it was, essentially, the Halo 3 engine with some shiny graphics plugged in. The game modes, at their core, were the same and while user-content is always a positive, the other Halo games stood on their own without it as well. It is simply the classic example of an AAA game being an AAA game, and while it didn't evolve Halo at all like previous versions, it kept true to what the old Halo multiplayer was - a fast-paced shooter focused on close range action.
