Wow, C3PX- we're totally on the same page here. I really liked Halo 2 as well, though I might have preferred 3 overall. In 2, I liked the alternating Chief/Arby thing and thought the story was a lot more interesting than Halo CE's as well. It's fairly common for the first part of a story to draw simple white/black lines and then for the 2nd part to bring out the grey or the blurred lines, and I thought Halo 2 did this well. I thought Halo 3 was really strong in the sense of the scale of the battle. It was much larger in terms of number of troops and also of combat hardware. (looks like Reach is going to have even larger scale set pieces).

Likewise, the Spartan design in what I've seen of Reach puts me off in almost the same way. Spartans are supposed to be 8 or 9 feet tall and it makes them look a little thin... The Reach Spartans totally looked to have that bulked up Gears of War look to me. Here's hoping that we're both wrong in that regard.

I was watching the Reach ViDoc "Into the Breach" and it had lots of people gushing over Halo CE and how its some kind of highwater mark that they're constantly trying to get back to. I think the games have only gotten better since CE, but I seem to be in a minority.