Halo 2 Anniversary should have kept the old sounds. A lot of the art was done in the shitty Halo 4 style too instead of the original Halo style. Blur absolutely smashed the cutscenes though.
You are right, it does provide something. I just personally don't value it over a more typical online co-op setup. I just wish options weren't scary and implemented more.
Its just an arbitrary mechanic added to justify an always online requirement. Helldivers had an offline option. There's still a game there without the need for "community involvement", the missions etc could be completely random or seeded for people who dont want to connect to a server.
Its always sad to see potential great games ruined by greed.
After being away from consoles for a long time now, they really have little appeal beyond their easy setup and cheaper hardware. The exclusives on any console are not worth buying a whole new console to play. There's so much more value in PC gaming, the intial barrier of entry and possible technical problems just put people off.
I really think Steam Machines could make a major comeback now, the deck has proved the software side, SteamOS is much more mature.