Also the later titles did somewhat move away from that. In 4 the main enemy was an US mercenary group IIRC. And at the end of that game it did sort of imply you would be attacking some sort of US agency in the next title (which was canceled, rip).

Yeah. It's sort of because a lot of these games got infected by the Hero-Shooter virus. Most of these games don't let you play as some ground soldier anymore - it's always some dweeb called McKai or Zeb who's cracking jokes and being epic on the battlefield, and who has 25 different themed skins. Casual military franchises now dont really stick to the simulation aspects of the old ones, or pretend to be adult games. They're out and out for kids.

Early call of duty where you can spend unlimited time sniping Nazis in Leningrad.

It also works as a great filter because all the terrible players never play the soviets because they "want to play the good guys" so you're usually on the winning side.

Space islamophobia

Basically what the reply above said. Still recommend giving the original trilogy a shot though, they're fun.

Many took the central premise of the very US-coded humans fighting against religious, fanatic genocidal aliens that way, especially after Halo 2 introduced the religious leaders of the Covenant called the Prophets, the leader of them being the Prophet of Truth. Also, the Arbiter, an elite warrior working for the Prophets was called Dervish during development. Halo 3 introduced a mechanic where cornered enemies would try to suicide bomb you. Also its revealed that the Prophets' religion is false and the humans are secretly the gods they worship and they're trying to cover up that fact by killing them

For context, Halo 1 came out in 2001 but Halo 2 came out in 2004 and the aftermath of 9/11 and War on Terror was in full effect. Halo being islamophobic is a common sentiment on Hexbear and while I think it's a bit overblown you've got to understand how it looked at the time

All the marketing for the game should appeal to chuds, then do a bait and switch half way through and basically berate the losers for thinking they were the good guys