You are not wrong my friend. I just got back from playing some Horde from Gears 5 since it was on sale on steam. I played it on gamepass last year, and without a game like The outer worlds on the horizon of release that fall I would have cancelled my sub then. Now supposedly they changed a bunch of stuff that was basically broken/terrible for horde. It still is a god damn mess, and makes little sense in how the menu system is laid out.
Gears became another grind fest, and like a lot of MS's titles that have online components they like many others in the multiplayer sector, are trying to make them grindy for the sake of it. Where the fuck has gaming gone? I remember when titles by MS were just fun online games that you made your own fun with what was given. Now its " how long can we keep them in our game".
And they wonder why so many flock to Sony and Nintendo. Because the games are the games, no bs. And maybe that is a negative to multiplayer focused players, who would rather play something with seasons or whatever. But there are games like call of duty, battlefield that do that. I really hope Microsoft has learned how to manage studios, and understand that the industry has been pushing back in this shallow way of developing games. Look at all the hero/battle roayal games that were released, and look at all the games now that have "seasons". Really hope a majority of the slate MS has coming is single player focused stuff thats quality.
Because if we get more campaign games with a heavier long term emphasis on multiplayer, Im seriously done with them as a brand. Gears was the last straw. I really love gears more than halo, and I like halo a lot. I recently replayed all of the campaigns and played some firefight with friends had a blast. But gears, co-op and horde from 3, and horde from 4 I spend tons of time on. And honestly I dont even recognize gears anymore.
MS needs to literally start looking at what they already have and understand that it just wasn't the number of studios they had that was the issue. They don't know how to manage them, and that has been going on for almost 2 gens. I really think after the honeymoon phase is done for gamepass, they are going to see what people are actually playing on the service. And it wont be microsoft games.