AxByC, nothing wrong with something being the first game a person ever played. Heck, my father is fifty and I was somehow able to get him to play GTA: Vice City; that's his first game ever. Gotta start somewhere.
I enjoyed it on the Xbox, but I do think a lot of the interior level designs were pretty damn repetitive. I liked the exterior environments though.
The music was lush and beautiful. It felt nicely cinematic without being totally overblown. Sure, it wasn't hard pumping beats to go with caffiene and counterstrike at 2am, but not everyone wants that in a game. I always felt the music scripting was pretty appropriate for what was going on; heck, maybe I've forgotten the parts where it didn't really work out but the overall impression was good.
I agree that the humans' ballistic weapons were mostly underwhelming in sound quality. I figure they ripped off the pulse rifle from 'Aliens' in almost every other way, why not do a good job at sampling the unique sound it made; or even decide to be orginal in the first place.
The 'sound' of the covenant weapons worked because you had continuous tactile feedback from the controller to go along with the noise they made. You coundn't get this from a standard mouse and keyboard combo.