I share a lot of your observations so far, so I'll just chime in below

So I'm three days in for playing the beta. I've purposefully kept myself dark on details and info, and haven't spent much time here on DBO because I wanted to go into the game without any preconceptions. I didn't know what I was in for with Halo CE and I loved it, so I figured the start of a new franchise is the perfect time to ignore everything and just go into it with an open mind.

I went in with about same, though I knew about some of the enemies and player classes. Everything else, if it wasn't in an official trailer I stayed away from it.

But I'm just not clicking with Destiny. I guess Bungie has made a good game—it's just nowhere near what I want out of their games.

It is definitely an MMO, and very, very grindy.It's not bad, but it's not great. Many elements are simply not my style, but there is fun to be had.

First, the pros: I love the sort of throwback 1970s tech style they've fused with a sprinkling of fantasy. The color palette isn't crazy vibrant but it feels very rich. I really like the character design and industrial design. I like my floaty double jump and the speeder bike.

I do like the art style. The first thing CommandrCleavage (formerly known as Rev1) said is how much it looked like Halo- which is the exact opposite of my opinion. I don't think it looks anythinglike Halo. To me it looks a lot like Mass Effect.

I think the 1970s look might just be because that's as advanced as the Russians got before the collapse :P

The bike is Star Wars. It looks like Star Wars. It sounds Like Star Wars. I do not like Star Wars, but I do have fun careening around the map like an idiot.

The Fallen weapon with the homing ammunition feels a bit like a recolored Needler, but I'm impressed that none of the weapons feel that much like retreads of the Halo series—they definitely exist in a different universe. Likewise while I'm not sure Marty's music is up to the level of the Halo series (or it's just not my style), I do appreciate its difference in style. I wouldn't have thought he could so effectively switch gears. He'll definitely be missed.

The music is very, very good. When I first started hearing things, my immediate thought was this is the third disc of the Halo Reach soundtrack. This is good and bad.

It's good because it Reach was good.

It's bad because it sounds too much like Reach to me.

6 of 1 and all that- It's like being a fan of a band when the release a new album and it sounds just like their last album and half the people like it BECAUSE of that and half don't for the same reason.

I'll say I'm worried about how they plan to keep that music style going for 10 years without Marty. I hope they stocked up, because if they just do re-mixes they're in for a bad time.

The weapons DO feel unique, for what we have access to so far, but I have a hard time telling them apart. A rifle is a rifle etc. Also, when they say there are over 100 guns, having Rifle ABC that is level 20 and then having that SAME rifle called ABC II or ABC III is NOT 3 different guns- it's the same damn gun, just with its stats increased. You're not fooling me, Bungie.

I hope some of the other species weapons are available for use, because some of them look really neat. I have not used a weapon that felt truly alien to me since the Combat Evolved Needler. An article from Kotaku does a great job explaining why, and I highly recommend reading it.

But it's all not coming together for me. I'm just not feeling that invested in what's going on. The story feels broad, and I don't feel like I'm learning much. Maybe the Grimoire cards would help tell me what's going on, but why should I have to log on to Bungie.net to get invested in the story? The Vex get dropped in and I don't understand why Ghost seems to act like I should know these guys.

I'm having the exact same issue. I like the story thus far, what little of it there is. I do realize that this is a beta, and there are things they don't want to spoil yet. However, I sincerely hope that the Grimoire stuff is not just going to be accessible on Bnet or the mobile app.

That is unacceptable.

If the cards are to fill in small story gaps and let the player learn about the world they are in, there must be a way to access them in game.

Part of the problem is there are no compelling supporting characters. I don't really know how I feel about Dinklage's voice acting, but if ever there was a reason to add some spunk to your AI companion, it would probably be because there's no one else talking to me. The Tower just feels like an inflated version of Fable 3's "there are no menus, they all exist in-game!" concept, complete with all these merchants I'm going to who are essentially mute. I'm told to talk to someone about my Crucible invitation… and I get a subscreen instead of lines of dialogue. Every time, it's a subscreen. Other random people in the world will throw out lines, why not people I'm going to be spending a lot of time running to? Having to do a button combo to leave the Tower and go back to my ship is simply wasted time and it started grating on me. Just let me fast travel when I want to the area I want directly.

This is a good observation and one I hadn't been able to put my finger on. I'm fine with my companion ghost. If he's a robot, the dry wit is nice.

There are no other supporting characters yet.

Maybe we'll get to them as the story progresses, but if Bungie is expecting my friends list and other gamers to be the supporting characters, that's great. For game play. It is not great, for exposition.

I also don't like the concept of getting "reputation" or whatever from the other NPCs. I ain't got time for that. I also don't like that some of that has to be tracked down in multi-player. 343 has tried to tie Halo's MP to the story. They did it horribly.I feel the same for Destiny. Maybe there are some games that make it work. Good for them. But for me, some things just need to be game play for game plays sake- no explanation or tie-ins needed.

For a game that touts itself to be so open, and inclusive and bustling with activity, I've never felt so alone.

The atmosphere is also ruined by fuck-twats that bounce around the tower and run circle around you or sprint to every place. So immersion breaking! I deliberately slow walk in the tower and by doing that I find that I get to appreciate the details more, I notice more, and it feels great.I wish it could last longer with out dance parties around every corner.

Why the hell is that even in the game!?

The Fallen and Hive seem remarkably similar, honestly. I dunno if it's the color palettes, design, a cross between them… but I have a hard time telling them apart, especially since there are locations where they're supposed to be fighting each other and they don't seem that interested in doing so. So for me combat devolves into killing stuff that kind of looks the same, until you reach bosses. It took me and some randoms about 30 minutes to plow through the two bosses in the Lair mission, and it wasn't fun, full stop. Weak points don't feel telegraphed by the design; I just have to aim down my sights and see what floaty numbers pop up. And then I have to empty all my ammo into it. Again, and again. It's more tedious than the Tartarus boss fight and less enjoyable. I just want to dump ammo into this enemy, but the bloom on the weapons I choose was horrible. I started feeling that creep of annoyance I felt in Reach where the weapons were actively working against me when I went up against groups of foes.

I disagree a lot here. I really want to cosplay a Fallen Captain. The fallen to me are a mix between the Elites and Jackals. I will say that the encounters get repetitive pretty quick though. Early on I found the only way to get a more aggressive and responsive AI was to bump the difficulty as high as I could. This worked great- however it also had the unfortunate side affect of making them bullet sponges until I found better weapons.

This does make boss fights un-interesting. The Walker is terrible. Sepiks was more fun, simply because as I ran around the map the bastard kept spawning above my head and trying to kill me with his purple vacuum mode. THAT, was fun and tense.

I really, really love the hive. They seem crustacean like due to some of their armor, and are genuinely a scary enemy. I like the little barnacles you see in their environments, but when you get close to them they look pretty shitty. Same with the random black stink lines that emanate from them. That effect reminds me of a really bad PC game. Some people love that style of graphics, I think it's hokey.

Playing as a Titan, the Hive were challenging. I like them. Then again, I like scary things and generic space zombies.

PvP doesn't feel much better. I liked Reach, I liked Halo 4, but the level of randomness and "whatever weapon you have wins this battle" is too much for me in Destiny. On my second game of Control I quickly found that whatever super power one of the classes has that serves like a rocket launcher was the perfect weapon for just camping a control point since I couldn't seem to evade the splash damage. The bloom is more annoying here than in the campaign, and what's the point of a floaty jump if my aim goes to pieces while I'm up there?

I absolutely hate the multi-player. It does not feel balanced, kills are not satisfying, I have issues with hit-detection, and for the one mode that has been available I don't see why it's fun.

I didn't say anything about PvP to CommandrCleavage so that she could discover it on her own. I didn't want my sour opinion to taint hers. She played a few games and said the exact same things I did.

I love the campaign, she loves explore, but you won't be finding us in the Crucible for any DBO nights. Sorry. It sucks.

I like Halo's MP, I like Battlefields MP, and a host of other games. Really looking forward to Evolve. Destiny's MP was a huge let down. Maybe that will change over time.

I'll keep giving the beta a chance while it's running, but I'm not optimistic. To me it feels like I'm playing a cleaned-up version of Borderlands—juggling a myriad of weapons I can't remember, fighting the sense I didn't bring the right gear to a fight, and full of vast playspaces that, unlike Halo, I don't feel really enticed to explore (loot crates are not going to do the trick.) But this game is like Borderlands where they've simultaneously sucked the charm and fun out of the world. The humor in BL might not be your style but it at least leaves a distinctive mark with me. Destiny… just leaves me with a shrug.

Explore is fun, as long as you keep finding new things to, well, explore. I'll chock this up to the small sampling they give us in the beta. There will be new places.

You hit the nail on the head with the loot though. So many of the caves are literal copy\pastes of each other, particularly in the Moth Yard. Many of the are exactly the same, just flipped or rotated 90- 180 degrees. Muscle memory has already taken over when I run into one and I know where the chest will be in there, if there is one. And then you get space bux. Whoopti do.

I didn't spend anything at all until the other night and the only thing I could really buy was a purple transformer space ship. That I can look at from the pause screen. Yey?

I'm glad people here are having fun, and I'm sad I probably won't be joining you guys in the fall. I'll probably stop on by every once in a while to see what cool stuff gets created and discussed.

I'm enjoying the story and campaign modes thus far. The public events are cool, and I like searching for them. Conversely, the fetch quests or stand here quests got old real fast in explore mode. Again, I hope this is just beta being beta but I swear to god if I go to Mars and all the quests just change to "kill X amount of Cabal for trinket X because reasons" I'm gonna go nuts.

There are better ways to do objectives Bungie. I need you to channel your inner Invasion designer. (I hope you didn't fire them too :P)Apply Invasion style objectives and interactive objects to the quests and things will improve vastlyI feel.

I'm excited to go on missions and quests with community members, and I'm having fun playing with my S\O. I'm going to enjoy playing this, for sure. But I can tell already that it's not going to have a hold over me like Halo does. For that I'm happy. I don't want one game to dominate my playing anymore. So, I'll happily play DBO destiny strike nights or whatever, but I'll still be getting my MP fix from Halo and other games.

There's a lot here I agree with, and I think it's telling how many people are complaining about the story too. I'd not paused to think much about the characters yet, but you're right that they seem vague and uninvolved. Again, I find myself wondering if that's just because of the narrow scope of the beta, and if we'll be interacting with them a lot more later on in the game. You don't hire an actor of Bill Nighy's calibre and only give him a minor role.

I find I disagree about combat, at least in PvE settings. The Hive and Fallen don't look massively different (bipedal humanoids) but they're very distinct in behaviour and the settings they appear in. The green glowing eyes of the knights and acolytes are very distinctive at distance, whereas the Fallen tend to have blue lights on their helmets. I'd suggest you give the Strike another go, if you can; I found it one of the most exhilarating experiences in the game, a real thrill. The idea of teaming up with friends to do this, voice chat enabled, is really compelling. Maybe you've been unlucky with your weapon drops, but if you take the time to level one or two different uncommon weapons of the same type you'll find there's quite a lot of variation even between the same class of gun. It's a great touch that it actually gives you an opportunity to make interesting choices about weapons based on your own play style and preferences, rather than there being a 'right' choice based on numbers alone.

PvP is another matter. The combat in the original Halo was a breath of fresh air compared to the lightning reflexes needed in the Quakes, Unreal Tournaments and Counter-Strikes of the day; by slowing the pace down somewhat it made it a little more accessible and I found I could be pretty competitive. Since then the series has gotten progressively faster-paced and close-ranged (the days of finding a nice sniper spot in Blood Gulch are but a fond memory). The modern FPS multiplayer game seems to be about realism and guns that kill in two or three rounds.

Destiny embraces this philosophy wholeheartedly and (as Schooly D pointed out) this results in a very fast-paced game where getting the jump on somebody is almost the most crucial factor in a gunfight, and one that feels like being kicked repeatedly in the teeth for players like myself who yearn for a bit less speed and a bit more strategy. In years gone by I may not have been the most deadly marksman but I was pretty good at capturing flags and squatting inside the hill to win games for my team. With Destiny it feels like you need to be good at killing first and foremost, and if you're good at the rest so much the better. This probably means I'll only play it as much as I can stomach having my ass handed to me, but maybe with a bigger player base the normal distribution of player skill will make it more approachable. We'll have to wait for September to find that out!