This is a spectacular game. I am a mother of a 12 year old, 14 year old, and a 16 year old. They all enjoy this game very much and play it with my husband. Before any of my kids knew about Halo, I was worried about getting it for them because a lot of people had said that it was an "M" game. When I heard my 12 year old was playing it at his friend's house, I wasn't pleased. But then my son showed me gameplay of the title, Halo: Reach, and he told me the plot of the campaign. I reconsidered buying him the game because the gameplay wasn't very violent, and there was no gore, only mild blood. I bought him the game and he was very happy, and he played it with his brothers and my husband a lot. I come to this site often during Christmas, when I'm thinking about what games I'm going to buy for my kids. When I saw this game was coming out, I decided to buy it for them so that they could have an "early present." So I came to look at CSM, it said Not For Kids. This made me very confused, as the past titles had been marked for 16 year olds, so I decided to go and look at the review. It included several misleading remarks in the review, like saying assassinations were a new feature in Halo 4. These existed in Halo: Reach as well, and I didn't find that it bothered me very much, as it was similar to the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game. I decided to take a chance and buy it anyway for my kids, and they were so excited. When the week was over, all three of them played the game together (a rare occurrence) through the whole story. I watched them have fun and even took a couple of pictures of them using teamwork to overcome the different combat missions and heard them "distracting enemies" and "boosting each other up" to previously unreachable places. I think CSM is rarely wrong, but on this title, I'd have to disagree with myself. It's just as violent as the previous titles, which all deserved a "T" rating. I think what families should look out for is violence (you can turn the blood off and even go into 3rd person if you desire), mild language, and positive role models. This game is spectacular and I think any kid that is a fan of video games older than 12 should get this game. It teaches teamwork, reflexes, and hand-eye coordination.

I know that a lot of families would immediately be fooled by Common Sense Media saying "Not For Kids." I usually think that Common Sense Media has it down. But here they kind of screwed up. I've bought my 12 year old son (my oldest) Halo: Reach last year (the previous game), when he was 11, and I thought it was a great game for kids his age to enjoy and even older kids to enjoy. I always check on Common Sense Media for reviews and appropriateness checks for these types of games that I get my son. When I saw Halo 4 was rated "Not For Kids" I said to him that I couldn't get it for him because CSM said otherwise. He was sad, of course, since Halo is his favorite game. But then I asked him to show me some other people playing the game and when he showed me the game, I thought it looked exactly the same as the other Halo games. He got annoyed at me for saying that :) But to ME it looked the same. So I decided to get it for him even though my most trustworthy source said not to. And I don't regret it. He and my husband played it for a couple of hours and my husband was hooked (which showed how good of a game it was). I watched them play it together for a little while and it was a little bit violent like the previous games, but I still don't think CSM was right on this game. Do your kids a favor parents! Buy your kids this game. It looks fun, and I don't even like video games. It teaches team building and maybe even a little bit of reflexes too. I give this game 5 stars, fair for learning, positive role models (Master Chief), watch out for a little bit of violence, and it's a FPS, so parents out there who don't like FPS-es look out for that. I think this game is ON for 12 year olds and up.

As a 23 year old male, I'm an active gamer that plans to have kids in the future. I've completed Halo 4 by myself on the hardest difficulty (Legendary) and played online a bit. The game has a fantastic, surprising story, thanks to the new developer, 343 Industries. The game is linear and story based, so it's more like a movie versus GTA, where players can potentially choose to deviate from the story and go into strip clubs. Halo 4, in the best case scenario of positive parenting, can encourage hand-eye coordination, motor skill development, team work, communication skills and perseverance/anger management (on harder difficulties). If kids play online, they should probably be 15+ if they use voice chat. Everyone else should turn voice off, which I think is possible in the settings. There is blatant profanity, racism, sexism and homophobic remarks from anonymous players online, or at least the potential for such things. Kids should be trained to expect such behavior and ignore these people and leave the particular match if they are really rude. Also, it's possible to mute specific players mid-game and send reports on their behavior. Cortana appears to be nude, but I'd compare her to Mystique from X-Men. It's a blue, skin-tight suit that doesn't show any anatomical details. But the female form is there for sure. In certain parts, she comes up in 3d hologram form and the player can rotate the image of her. I'd image this might cause giggles in young kids, but not much more. The game can desensitize players to becoming skilled at getting head shots, or instant kills. These shooting games, if analyzed critically, always make me ask why are these soldiers are going to war and why we're killing these hundreds of troops. It's important to talk about death, what it means and why we might have to kill, in the case of war and protecting our families. Like what happens when we die? It might be a hard conversation to have, but no one thinks twice about how the bodies are piling up and what it ultimately means. Thinking can make you question why you are killing all these people/creatures in games. Some enemies (The Covenant) in the game are technologically advanced, but religiously insane in their black and white views of the universe. They always seek to gain entrance to heaven by killing everyone in the universe through use of various weapons. It's never a good thing to be so black and white, but perhaps an analysis of fundamentalist religion can be made here. The forerunner element of the game highlights mankind's flaws, like our agression and manifest destiny for conquest of other countries and the universe itself. Forerunners are the original protectors of the universe and they point out how mankind might lead to the downfall of everything if they're left to their own devices. Parents can draw parallels to the Cuban Missile Crisis and possible self-extinction events. Are we as a species capable of surviving in the future or do we need guidance from a higher authority? Depending on your view of the military, the Master Chief can be a positive role model only in the sense that he is a tireless military protector of mankind, or of his country/nation (in this case, Earth). I think important themes of losing your humanity at a cost are prevalent - in the way that Chief and Cortana (the player's assistant, an AI woman) question which one of them is really the machine. In the same way that a military soldier must dehumanize himself and his enemy in order to kill, so too must the Chief look forwards in fairly simplistic ways. Chief (John 117) was engineered in a special science program to be stronger than other humans, but the cost being that he is antisocial and can't relate to other humans. He talks to his AI, Cortana, almost exclusively, to preserve his mind.

This has absolutley no violence, language or drug refference it is an outstanding game. it is good for kids and an exciting game for ages 10 and up.

One of the best shooters out there, but too much violent....

Hmmm i am reading these reviews and i almost giggled at the parents who are saying that halo teaches important lífe skills. If your child begs for a game that involves killing in the first person and beating some one to death and u cant say no, dont justify it by trying to find role models and lífe lessons in it, just buy it and realize that its probably not the best thing for them but they will probably survive. I have an 8 year old who played this at his friend's house and it bothers me a lot how desensitized both kids and parents are to the violence in these games. The kid asks, the parents buy. Now my kid wants halo too... Dream on, boy. I can't see a single "lífe lesson" here or "hand-eye coordination" practice that he couldn't get eles where without murdering something.

This is a really good game. Language is rare and violence is not gory. Only issue would be the people on the online features. One of the few "M" rated titles appropriate for tweens.

This game is one of my most favourite, But then again COMMON SENSE MEDIA, This game is okay for kids, I can hardly see Blood and swearing than the previous ones... Yes, it's a first person "shooter"... It's one of the best Role-Playing games too, I let my 9 year old play this game and he absolutely love it than the VIOLENT CALL OF DUTY... I recomended this Game...

if your son likes first personn shooters but you are not wanting to buy it for him because you tjink it will affect his behavior on other chilldre? well this game is perfect becaus the violence in this game is extreamlly mild aand there is absoulutly no bad language i know this because i have played through the game before allowing my son to play, so i recomend this game more than other shooters out there for example COD (call of duty) is really bad for kids under 15 because it really effects them but don,t woory about this game because it made no side effects on my son so i recomend it for children 10 and up