Re: Meh. @Dave 126
A lot of those pet peeves were better managed by later FPS, the ones that didn't give in to Halo. Half-Life put weapons into categories; many of those started using autosave; and BioShock even made a weapon select menu that freezes the game while you select weapons.
Ironically, I found the Halo-style games to be somewhat *harder* than their predecessors, because they also introduced the awful "checkpoint" system from old sidescrolling games. That is, saving will save the game up to the last checkpoint, vs. "right where I am". So if you get 90% through one of the hard as hell segments, but get iced by a lucky shot, you had to start all over again. This is mainly what put me off of Halo and most FPS following this system.
One of the ironies with Duke Nukem Forever is that many reviews basically said that the game was outdated, belongs to 1997, yada yada. The thing is that the reasons that DNF ended up being a lemon is because it actually incorporated the Halo-style combat, linear levels & similar stuff... so the game just felt like reskinned Halo instead of a Duke Nukem game. :(