Halo Wars garnered generally positive reviews. The game has an average of 82/100 on aggregate web site Metacritic. Critics were split on whether Halo Wars was a successful console translation of the RTS genre. GameSpy's Allen Rausch argued that, as Halo: Combat Evolved showed that first-person shooters could work on consoles, Halo Wars "is an RTS ... on a console ... and it works". Tom Price of TeamXbox said that gamers have been waiting a long time for a console RTS "to get it right", and Halo Wars did so; reviewers for Official Xbox Magazine credited Ensemble with creating a strategy game that felt "absolutely at home on the console", rather than a "poorly shoehorned ... port" of a PC game with clumsy controls. 1UP's Thierry Nguyen was neutral about whether it was a good RTS game or Halo title, but called it a "solid beginning towards what could be a really good console RTS". Digital Trends' Scott Steinberg said that, while not perfect, Halo Wars made a strong case for the viability of RTS on consoles; "There's certainly the potential to have PC holdouts seriously reconsidering hoisting the controller." Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle offered a dismissive summation of the game as "a remedial game—real-time strategy for dummies", and stated that the game offered relatively little innovation when compared to other Halo titles.
