Another member here has said this, but I can't remember who: it was like DH wanted Colonial Marines to be a dark story about battle wearing down the Marines, with a heavy drug addiction story on top, but couldn't get away with it (whether because of the times or studio mandates), so it just wound up being really silly. I also remember reading that DH wanted it canceled basically from the first issue. You can definitely tell the places where new writers came in an basically said "forget all that!"