Yep, I picked up Halo Anniversary - actually, I made a thread about it but that hasn't received much attention, so I'll copy-paste what I wrote:
The campaign gameplay is as good as it ever was, but unfortunately time has passed and it's difficult to not constantly be comparing Halo's 10-year-old gameplay, vehicle mechanics and level design to current games. Don't get me wrong, the ol' girl is still perfectly serviceable, but her Miss World days are over. I predict, with some sickening inevitability, that a lot of kids who were too young to have played the original Halo: CE are going to pick up this game, play a couple of levels, and then flatly denounce Halo as over-rated and OMG MOST OVERHYPED GAEM EVAR IF U LIEK IT U R FANBOI!!.
My God, some of the reimagined character designs are just fugly. I wasn't convinced by what they did to Keyes in the last few minutes of Reach, and if possible they've made him look even goofier here. Poor old Johnson has really let himself go too.
Bundling the campaign (Halo: CE engine) and multiplayer (Halo Reach engine) together is something of a perverse decision, as it lays bare the differences that have evolved over the last 10 years. The original Warthog really DID, in hindsight, handle like a great big ice cube whose centre of gravity is located approximately at the turret gunner's nose. The original Magnum really was an over-powered handcannon, and ye gads, HOW much ammo are you giving me?
The graphical interface: that's ok, 343 industries, you go on ahead and assume I've got a 50-inch HD monitor. I don't mind having to press my nose up against the screen to read the text.
One of the much-touted graphical strengths of the original Halo was the way the sunlight filters through foliage. This has been TAKEN OUT in the updated engine. Come on, 343, you thought no-one would notice?
The new Multiplayer maps have their own playlist, and add an exra 300 Gamerscore (maybe I'm getting confused, but aren't some of the new achievements marked as being for the Defiant map pack? It's been a while since I booted up Reach). There's not a dedicated Multiplyer disc a la Halo 3: ODST, although at this point in Reach's lifespan 343 really SHOULD be making decisions like making the previously DLC map packs (Noble and Defiant) freely available so we can finally be rid of this bloody matchmaking segregation. It's like being made to sit at the back of the bus, AND being asked to pay more for the privilege. Sort it out! Anyway, the multiplayer maps are played either from the Anniversary disc, or if you buy new, you get a code which lets you download the multiplayer maps to HDD so you can play them through Reach as usual. Yep, yet another example of getting screwed if you buy preowned.
Headlong is back from Halo 2, and it's as tight and finely-tuned as ever it was. For a non-symmetrical map it's incredibly well-balanced and you really can never put your guard down. Great fun for CTF and team slayer. Timberland is really quite a gorgeous level - I played a game of Big Team Snipers on it, which was a blast. Not played any of the other multiplayer levels yet.
Also: I must be the last person on the planet who actually cares about this, but I'm getting cheesed off with the Firefight modes that are available in Matchmaking. Case in point, Halo Anniversary comes with a very nice new Firefight map, based on the original Halo level from the first game and featuring - halleluja - AI ODST troopers who fight alongside you. Time for some great times carefully kitting out your squad using heavy weapons salvaged form the battlefield, in a tooth-and-nail fight to the death on one of the most iconic and classic battlefields in the franchise. Right?
Wrong. Boot up Firefight Matchmaking and there is no normal firefight, all there is is bloody "Super Crazy Exploding-Trousers Big-Head Gruntzillapocalypse Rocket Jetpack Score Attack Mode! One Wave and You're Done!". Your ODSTs? Greasy smears on the scenery within 30 seconds. Lives? Infinite. Tactics? Out of the window.
Bring back Firefight Limited (or even, dare I suggest, Firefight Classic), you *ssholes. Some of us Halo players actually do have an attention span of more than 5 minutes and don't play the game just for the multi-coloured explosions.
