Like the title says, this post is about my initial thoughts on Destiny.
I was putting together my initial thoughts on Destiny, and I wound up with a few categories and a few standout items, and I realized I could fit the most of the standout items into categories too and they'd look OK, so I figured I'd put everything in one categorized post. I have a few things that ended up long though and they'd be real speed bumps if I included them here, so I'm putting them in their own posts, but in the same thread, to keep conversation together.
I've been playing Destiny for about two weeks now. I haven't explored everything or finished the story, partly because of a lack of time and partly because until recently I was trying to finish another game (and moreover I wanted to finish the other game first, because it was Marathon; I decided to give it a rest until I finish Destiny's story). This of course puts certain limits on what I can get into. What can I say, this was originally supposed to be my thoughts on my first few days to a week, and posted promptly. If you want to know specifically, I've done the Earth missions, the first Moon mission, the Earth strike, five-ish games of Clash (slayer/deathmatch), a slightly higher number of games of Control (territories + slayer), a ton of Patrols in Old Russia, and one Patrol on the Moon.
(Yes, I took the title from a small video Bungie put out before Reach, and they adapted the title from a movie.)

The Good
(Things I like)

- the atmosphere is good, as I've come to expect-- I think they mostly nailed what they were going for and the world is likeable (which seems like a weird way to describe a world, but "likeable" really fits, to me)

- I like the visual design for the most part, and I can't think of anything I don't like about thesound design or the music

- it's fun; it's a fun game to play, the shooting is generally fun, the other attacks are fun, the enemies mostly aren't anything special but they're pretty good; I'm not bored, and I don't see myself getting bored for quite some time

The Iffy
(Things that I have issues with but am not comfortable calling bad)

- I've said since I found out about it that the Grimoire should be available in the game; seeing how good most of it is, I'm even more nonplussed

- I have major issues with the lack of interaction, but it seems from the recent developer notes that Bungie wants to have more and has plans in that area and is even working towards implementing them, so I'll re-evaluate that once the changes have been made

- enemies spawn really quickly, really often, really nearby-- I think a high spawning rate is good for the type of game this is and how it's set up, but this is ridiculous, or bordering on ridiculous; my main issue is it's very rare to feel like you've actually cleared out an area of any real size, and that majorly takes away from any feeling of accomplishment

- related to the last point, ammo despawns after a fairly low amount of time and/or distance from where and when it was dropped-- 90% of the time this isn't an issue; I think I have yet to completely run out of ammo for my primary, and have only run out of ammo for my secondary when I used it a lot, mostly in public events-- it can get annoying for special ammo though, and it underscores the fact that most of the time you don't need any given ammo drop because you'll get another one in less than three minutes

- the Crucible-- it seems like it has major issues, but I haven't played it a ton and I'm not that leveled up (and I don't know how much those things should matter), so I'll see what I think of it after another month or two

- the human male's dance sucks, IMHO, I want my character to look like me, not dance like me

The Bad
(Things I dislike)

- there are too many little mechanical and electronic sound effects in Ghost dialogue for my liking, they can get distracting and sometimes they make it hard to understand what the Ghost is saying

- all or most of the display issues noted in my beta issues post are still there-- things appearing or disappearing or getting better/worse textures, mostly, though there's also that hole in the fallen-over sign in the area where you first start that looks like someone messed up the transparency and there are some stubby branches that aren't actually attached to their tree trunks

- two of the green eye colors for humans seem to be switched around, the brightest one shows up dark when applied to the eyes and a darker one is brighter

- in the sub-screen where you pick your control layout, the top area of the screen and your Guardian card (or whatever you call it) make it hard or impossible to see what the triggers and bumpers do, depending on the exact positioning of the cursor

- why can't we use any alien weapons? I'm pretty sure it could only improve the experience

The Ugly
(Things that I really dislike)

- there are doorways that have invisible barriers in them; they were in the beta too, but in the beta, I assumed they were spawn areas or something, and that in the final game they would let you into them or remove them or at least close them off when they weren't being used, but they're still there; they're not even out of the way, several are a few meters from doors you have to go through, but have invisible barriers in them... WTF? like really, what the actual fuck, guys?

- all the NPCs in the Tower are still too quiet, I rarely understand what they're saying, even if I turn my TV up two or four notches

- why is there no first-person view option for the Tower, and why is there no way to zoom in in the Tower? Bungie's always been pretty good about details; why can't I look more closely at things in the Tower?

- stats (please see below)

- customization (please see below)

- the cursor UI (please see below)

The Badass
(Things I really like)

- precision kill deaths, at least on the Fallen and Hive, although for the Hive I might be thinking of deaths in general-- I'd still like to know why the Fallen do that soul-escaping thing though (assuming someone let Joe Staten or another writer actually come up with a reason instead of saying "no it's just a cool fantasy-ish thing"; the Rule of Cool is fine, especially in something like this, but to purposefully not come up with reasons for things seems counterproductive and just wrong to me)

- hand cannons-- the OK ones are OK, I haven't really run across a bad one, and the good ones are so good, you don't even know, man; for a while now I've been coming back to the Duke Mk. 21-- it's effectively a reskinned, high-impact, small-magazine scout rifle, but no actual scout rifle I've had measures up in usability or aesthetic enjoyment (hand cannons don't seem to be that good for using in the Crucible, but I don't have that much of a problem with that, it's the old "different weapons for different enemies" thing)

- a lot of the things I like about Destiny are the reasons I'm a Hunter, and I never got around to detailing why I like being a Hunter, so:

--- knives

--- throwing knives (yes, this deserves a separate entry)

--- the incendiary grenades are kind of nice but the appearance of the fire seems inconsistent and it's usually woefully behind Halo 3 and Reach (I remember they said they had to majorly change how fire works to have it be all over the place in Reach and not bog down the game, I'm guessing they had to do that again for Destiny; whatever it was, the visuals suffered for it)

--- a focus on "physical" combat as opposed to more ethereal "magical" combat-- not that I don't like magic, but shooting someone is more visceral, and shoving a knife in their face is even more visceral than that

--- Nathan Fillion-- I'm not a gigantic fan of his or probably even a big fan (I still haven't really seen his most famous roles), but I like what I've seen of him in games and TV and movies and when he's not acting, so it's nice to have him be "my" Vanguard representative

--- throwing knives (yes, this deserves an entry separate from the other separate entry)

--- capes I'm on the fence about, I really really want to put down the damn hood every single cape comes with, but the capes themselves are a pretty good idea and I've seen several I liked the looks of

--- double jumping-- it's enjoyable and feels less BS than some of the other jumping abilities (I may revise this statement after I try them out though)

--- throwing knives that set things on fire (I haven't gotten this yet but I expect it to be good)

--- Chain of Woe-- where has this been my whole life?!

As a thank-you for reading this far, and because I can't think of a better way to give them away, here are the bonus codes I got with the game:
GameStop sparrow: H94JK-CCXT7-W3RMK-6MX3K-VWYCZ
early Vanguard armory access: PCTC3-36TR9-W9723-PD4HJ-XDVWZ
I got the Xbox 360 version of the game so these might only apply to Xbox versions or only Xbox 360 versions.