Every Halo game's public reception and how I remember it.
As someone who has played Halo since CE in 2001, here's how I personally remember each game and its public reception :
Combat Evolved : Blew everyone's mind, period. The way the AI interracted with each other, the fact that they made an FPS actually feel good on consoles, the universe, the story telling, the gameplay... it was so ahead of its time it single handedly put Xbox on the map.
Halo 2 : One of the most quotable game of all time... people were however pissed at the E3 level not being in the game, and they lost their fucking mind at the cliffhanger which hit especially hard because the story was so gripping. Also the Gravemind confused the shit out of a lot of people lol. The MP set the standard for the matchmaking that games still use today, and was just incredible. Regenerating health was also a huge thing. Personally, H2 online was my golden age.
Halo 3 : Many OG players had issues with the sandbox (everything was nerfed to the ground), story, voice acting, presentation and maps when compared to H2 but overall, none of this mattered ; Halo 3 was on a much more popular console, and everybody was playing it and talking about it. It was a very satisfying ending to the trilogy. Community tools like forge and theater was simply brilliant and made the community one of the best I've ever been a part of... it truly was the golden age of Halo.
Reach : The most divisive Halo game... when it came out, stuff like no Bleed-through, armor abilities, bloom and MP maps being campaign levels completely disrupted Halo's formula and the game single-handedly killed the competitive scene for Halo. I vividly remember people saying Halo was dead lol. As for the campaign, most people agreed that it was a very good campaign but the story pissed off the 'lore nerds' because it didn't follow Fall of Reach whatsoever... the MP was saved by the amazing FORGE, though.
Halo 4 : Most people who quit Reach early (before it became awesome), came back to H4 thinking it would go back to the series' roots ; It did not... it only alienated the fanbase further. This is when CoD officially took over... The story was pretty well received though, I remember people crying at the ending lol.
Halo 5 : Story was absolute dogshit, nothing redeemable about it whatsoever... I've never seen one person say the story was good. MP is good today but at launch it lacked a severe amount of content. Gameplay is good and goes back to Halo's roots of an even playing field while turning Reach's and 4's abilities into an extension of the base movement instead of being pick ups or loadouts. It just wasn't good enough for people to go out and buy an Xbox in a time where the Xbox brand was really struggling. No split-screen was one of the biggest talking point when the game came out...
... yeah, a lot of these opinions have changed today lol. Thought it would be fun to remember how each game was received when it came out. Does that sound accurate to you, my dudes?
EDIT : Left out ODST and Halo Wars (1 and 2) mostly because ODST was more like a big expac and Wars was a lot more niche ; I played them but nobody I know did... never really talked about the games either.