Putting my better judgement aside for a moment, I decided to see what all the fuss is about with the brand spanking new Halo Reach. So with perfect conditions (everyone asleep, lights off, nice and comfy), and some encouragement from certain work colleagues I dived into Halo Reach with a bit of enthusiasm.

But my enthusiasm took a dive right from the start, when I realised I was staring at what looked like a game engine that would have been laughed at on the PC platform five years ago. Yeah, it tries to look nice, but the ugliness is too obvious to ignore. Low poly counts and dreadful textures (which I had admittedly been warned about) had me scratching my head, because I've recently started playing Dead Space - a game that is nearly 2 years old - yet looks light years ahead of Halo Reach.

Putting that aside I soldiered on, and this time my enthusiasm was being eroded by the lacklustre opening battle, which felt like it was fantasised by someone with the story telling ability of a Michael Bay fan in high school.

This was easily one of the most banal moments I've experienced in my gaming history. There was nothing interesting happening - just wiping out enemy after enemy after enemy with no real compulsion. In fact I quickly worked out you're able to just run past them all anyway without actually engaging them.

While all this is happening the battle chatter received though your intercom is always something to the accent of "there's more enemy coming" or "there's another drop shop with more enemies" or "try and get to the checkpoint - and take out the enemy". Truthfully it was so fracking cliché and contrived it was a struggle to pay close attention.

Put to you this way: If I haven't been drawn in after a couple of hours of game-play, I don't think there is much hope for the rest of the game, which apparently is about 8 - 10 hours (depending who you ask).

Today I'll take my copy of Halo Reach back to the store, no doubt to shocked looks of disbelief from the games salesperson who I happen to encounter.

For the record I do realise I'm in the minority here, as clearly there are some people out there who would think I must have been playing a different game. But I guess my standards are a bit higher.