>>7566963other things to avoid that come to mind:
Halo 3 tan scout spartan. It may look cool since it's the only tan/desert colored spartan McFarlane made, but it actually comes with an undersized battle rifle. So unless you already have a spare weapon to give him, this will be a guaranteed disappointment. The tiny battle rifle looks ridiculous. Other than that it looks good and the paint job is crisp.
other interesting facts:
the series 8 ODST Buck figure has a terribly flat paint job, it's painted in just a dull, flat grey. Now if you're a customizer and do model kits or warhammer miniatures or whatever you can repaint it with your own acrylics and it will look fine. But if you don't have time for that, there's a better version of Buck in a 3-pack called "Fearless Leaders" that has darker, more metallic looking ODST armor.
The Halo 3 mongoose. Nothing wrong with the mongoose itself, but the spartans that come with it are atrocious and have different/inferior articulation compared to the standard Halo 3 guys. They also have no neck. People often go for the Mark V/mongoose set because it seems alluring, but you're better off hunting down the Target Exclusive Mark V since it comes with standard articulation and a normal neck (and a nice spartan laser). Unless you really need a mongoose, I don't think these sets are worth it unless they're cheap.
Rookie figures. The single carded ones are all terrible and defective unless you get lucky and you're planning on repainting it. The one with the ODST drop pod is good but doesn't come with a backpack. The only decent/non-riskey rookie figure that comes with a backpack is the glow in the dark VISR mode rookie that comes with the mongoose. The bright green glow in the dark shit looks kind of gimmicky though, so each to their own.
The series 3 Brute War Chieftain tends to get his right wrist snapped off. The series 1 gravity hammer chieftain is great though and seems to able to suffer from endless abuse.
