HoyXX MCC Leftovers #1 - Edited by BL4CKOUT.

For Blackout.

Everyone starts somewhere so I'm not going to go into full 100% dissection mode. Just want to give you some tips if my opinion is worth taking seriously.  

For a fast paced drill track like this, I wouldn't have any slow motion shots because it just kills the flow. A fast song like this deserves to show off the fast gameplay and some quick cuts. Think of it as slow motion footage going to Metallica music for example, it wouldn't work. It would look like the track and footage are from two separate videos. If there were fast footage to the rock music then it would make a lot more sense considering it's supposed to be intense. Horrible example but you get it I'm sure.

For syncing, you never want to force a sync like Wanny mentioned. I always try to let the gameplay sync itself rather than putting in random cuts to go with the track. It's kind of like I want to make it look like I'm not trying to manually sync each clip. 39 seconds - 43 seconds is what I mean by forcing a sync. Nothing's going on worth syncing the gameplay other than him switching weapons which is never worth looking at for more than 2 seconds. There are multiple clips like this that should have started/cut way later when the actual clip begins (when he shoots the first guy), which leads me to my next point, trimming.

Trimming is the most boring (imo) but one of the most important factors to editing. At 1:09, you let the clip play for 12 seconds before he even gets a kill. This shows him missing shots, nade kills, and just walking which no one cares to see and wastes music time.  There are multiple clips like this in this tage and you could literally save almost a minute of music time to fit more clips if you cut them properly, which means giving them around 2 seconds of running or whatever until they get the first shot. I always would get the compliment of "he makes my gameplay look better than it actually is" simply due to trimming the clips properly and taking out missed shots and boring parts without making it extremely noticeable (sniper bullet smoke from missed shot still in the air) when they get their kills.

As far as effects, I can tell you're experimenting which is great, that's the best way to learn. If you're so in love with the distortion/displacement map effect then I would use that to your advantage and key it to the music, rather than laying it on top of the clip to play out. In my "Into the tranQ" trailer I used that a couple of times but only to relevant times such as the distorted radio sound.  This is a bad track to talk about this since the bass rides out instead of having solid hits but you get what I'm saying.  Twixtor has always just been a sloppy effect to slow down time unless it's done so well to where there's barely any distortion, which is rare for a game like Halo. Try to get your hands on some 60fps MCC footage and you'll see how much cleaner of a difference just slowing 60fps footage down is compared to using Twixtor. 

Color correction is always a touchy thing to deal with especially for a game like Halo where the maps are all different colors and brightnesses. The best tip I can give for color correction is to pick your style for the video and go with it. You never want to have all of these different harsh colors for different clips because it looks sloppy and unplanned. I would pick a certain color scheme you think would look good to go with the music and change the brightness/darkness of it every now and then since some maps are really bright and others are dark.  Never go with the blurred corners, it will just never look good, ever.

Hope this helps you in some way and keep practicing man.