As many know, I got the game last Friday, so here are some early thoughts. (mind you, I'm not a big deathmatch Halo fan, I'm in it for the co-op)

Well, after a full day of Halo 2 co-op yesterday, I must say the game is pretty fun.

Of course, as with any game, there are good and bad things about it.

The good stuff comes from being able to duel wield, drive almost any vehical, the cinemats, and the huge variety of weapons. The bad stuff consists of having the lost feeling alot of the time, the fact that you can't really tell a rebel covenant from a normal covenant during standard gameplay, textures / set geometry popping in and out really bad, (at times there was a solid grey Master Chief model and a second later, his textures pop in), and other little things such as not being able to pistol whip while duel wielding, but thats just a personal pet peeve. I haven't gone all the way through the game just yet, so I don't know if there are more things to add to that list.

The love the cinematic feel of this game. The cinemas rock, even with all the popping. This game definatley feels like you're watching an epic movie.

I'm a duel wielding SMG guy, and I love the Plasma sword. You can mess up alot of people with that.

Driving the vehicals is another great aspect of the game. Nothing says fun like driving some tanks around and blasting the little moving shapes running around.

The game basically opens as the first Halo did where you control Master Chief. Through out the intro cinemat, you see what happens to your Covenant counterpart. You play through a couple scenerios as Master Chief, then switch over and play as your Covanent couterpart for a couple, and so forth and so on.

The biggest drag is the first levels as a Covenant are difficult because the guys you're after look just like you, so you find yourself just shooting at anything that moves.

My other complaint is a serious lack of any indicator that tells you were to go. Often times, after a huge firefight, we'll find ourselves just in a room not knowing where to go. So there's a lot of "Where the hell do we go now?" Especially since most of the arcitectual elements blend into each other.

Overall, Halo 2 is a great game in my opinion. I'm sure you guys will pick it up. I'm sure some will hate it, and others will love it. From a co-op lover veiwpoint, it's tons of fun. A lot of the same with enough new to keep the game fresh.

I'm looking forward to playing more tonight.

Just figured you might want to add a spoiler warning; you just revealed a huge plot twist of the game. If I didn't know already (because some other fella spoiled it already) I'd have been sort of annoyed, you know?

My first impressions so far is that it's a fairly disappointing game based on the hype and all. Then again, I'm still feeling the burn from Fable.

The cinematics and texture popping is AWFUL. I can't believe it made it out the door looking the way it does.

If you got Xbox Live, then yeah, this one is a no brainer. But I have the feeling a lot of folks are going to start tearing through the campaign with some serious deja vu. I'm also kind of disappointed with just how darn blocky everything is, especially the environments. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not content with the polycount being halved, so long as it's overly bumpmapped and shiny.

Take my crits with a grain of salt though. IT IS Halo, and it's a blast to play as the Chief, I just think I'll be cappin more Xbox Live-ers than Covanent when it's all said and done.

Wow the humans in the game particularly in the cinematics just look so bad. I'd agree that I cant believe it made it out of the door in this state. The heavy specular on the faces and over use of fairly low res normal maps just looks truly terrible. Proportionally they ( like the previous game ) still look like 12 yr olds too.

From what I've seen looking at it in the office this morning, It's Halo, it's more of the same, but not really much better than before. This isn't necessarily a bad thing I guess, but Im no longer in a big rush to pick this up. I think the scores are too high. But perhaps I should reserve jusdgement til I play it all the way through.

Well I just got it last night... At first I was actually dissapointed because it felt so different. But after about 3 hours I was really into it. Damn that game is fun. During the cinematics though the LOD keeps changing at all the wrong times so like daz said.. for me the people REALLY look like crap. The new suit and the new marines suits are really cool though.