I had a large post planned out but I lost it some how so now you need to make do with this shitty little one, I hope your happy Adrian!
There has only ever been one Halo 3 killer and only ever will be one Halo 3 killer and that is CoD4. Although thats actually in correct, CoD4 wasn't able to kill Halo 3 either but it came the closest to doing it. the reason why coD4 came close to killing Halo was because CoD4 was what Halo 3 was supposed to be, both in Story and Multiplayer.
To prove this I need to take you back to Halo 2 and explain the expectations that it created. First of all lets look at the maps. Halo shipped with 12 maps and a sweet extra content disk gave it another 11 a year later. The first 12 maps where all great and widely liked. This wasn't because of the way that they were designed but because of the way that the different game types suited them. For example Coagulation was the Big Team Battle map, Lockout was the FFA map, Zanzibar was the medium team objective maps, Ascension was the TDM map etc. But there where also other maps that suited different game types. Headlong could be Big Team battle, large to medium objective game types, standard TDM, specialty TDM (Team Snipers and swat was pretty good on this map) and even a large Free For all. This map suited nearly every game type. Beaver Creek was great for small team objective maps, Team Death match and Free for All. It seemed that the Halo 2 map formula consisted of having each game type have its own special map while also sharing maps with other game types. These shared maps would play well for whatever game types they suited but the specialty maps would play the best with their intended game types. That means that there was always a great map for every game type while also having a wide variety. If you got bored of playing big team on Coagulation you could swap to Water Works and while it might not be as good as Coagulation you can still enjoy yourself. You could do the same in Objective maps. Get tired of one flag CTF on Zanzibar you can play 1 Flag CTF on Waterworks. That was what was so great with the maps. This quality of map is what I (and what I think a lot of other people) expected from Halo 3.
Halo 3 on the other hand, did not deliver. Halo 3 rolled out with 9 maps. Three of those where only good For Big Team and nothing else. Okay, maybe they are good at specialty game types like team snipers and rocket race but at game types like Assault, 1 Flap CTF and territories they felled flat. This wouldn't have been so bad if they where half decent at Big Team but they weren't. Sandtrap didn't offer enough vehicles with Fire power. The vehicles that Spawn in include Warthogs, A couple of Brute Choppers, mongooses and a Banshee. The Banshee is pointless because each side has a missile pod and spartan laser, so are the mongooses when the enemy has an average defense set up. There is no point to Big Team if you don't offer up some big vehicles. Valhalla wasn't that much better either. The man cannons and raised middle hill halved the map, instead of being base VS base it had become base VS hill or hill VS base. The vehicles included a Banshee at either base, a Warthog at either base and a couple of Mongooses. Again there was nothing interesting. The banshees where okay but where killed pretty quick by the Lasers and the Missile pods and they take forever to come back. Last Resort was a remake of Zanzibar, only made bigger. It stopped being about 1 sided objective maps and became a Big team map. But the problem here was that one side spawned in a building with turrets and the other spawned on the beach with vehicles. The Defense and attack design was still there except it stopped having things to attack and defend. It was a giant mess. Big Team was slightly fun on this map but it never felt right.
The other 6 maps where all a giant TDM and FFA mess. They tried to both be FFA and TDM but couldn't get any of them right. The best example is Snowbound (oh retched Snowbound, how I detest thee). Snowbound has two bases and one cave with a shotgun that is linked to both bases. The shotgun is a very powerful weapon especially with the shield doors that stop people from shooting at you from afar. The whole map becomes a rush for the shotgun in both game types. Whoever gets it and hides underground for the longest will win. Proof (red area means high number of kills, blue low, grey none) [http://www.bungie.net/online/HeatMaps.aspx?map=360&wep=0&kd=0]. This is not a fun map.
There are other maps like this,High Ground for example is really good for one sided objective games but can't play other game types well. This would be okay if there where other maps to pick up the slack and if it wouldn't play games it was not suited for but it there are no other maps and it does play game types it is not suited for. Team Death match is terrible for High ground but it doesn't stop it from being loaded up in matchmaking. The whole point of the map is that one team has an advantage over the other team in the form of the high ground and the turret but if they fail to maximize on that advantage then they lose. This should not be the case for TDM. In TDM each team should have equal footing and equipment.
So basically the maps in Halo 3 failed to deliver when compared to Halo 2. However the maps in CoD4 did deliver.
Each map in CoD4 can be played with each game type by moving around the spawns slightly. For example in Overgrown the two teams spawn at each end of the creek. In TDM one side is on the north bank and the other side spawns at the south bank diagonally opposite of each other. In S&D however the western team spawns on the southern side of the bank. Meaning that the attacking team has to make a choice between exposing themselves at the start to plant the bomb at B which is easier for them to defend later on or avoid exposing themselves so that they can plant the bomb at A but have a harder time of defending it later on. This moving of the spawns changes the game from being decided with player/team skill (TDM) to being decided by player/team tactics (S&D). Of course tactics and skill are important in both in TDM individual skill is more important while in S&D team tactics is more important.
In Cod4 there was originally 16 maps, most of these are played in all game types and all of them played well. Some are better than others but unlike in Halo 3 there was another map that made people think "Vote, this map sucks for Domination" or "Vote, this map sucks in Sabotage". There are some, Bog for example, but most of the maps where a hoot for all game types.
This is how CoD4 ended up being what Halo 3 should have been map wise and its taken a lot longer to say than I originally hoped for.
I think Bungie realised this and it shows in the most recent maps. Ghost Town is the best example here. It's TDM, FFA and Small Team objective map (with some forge tweaks).
Well that took a long time to say. Originally I was going to go on more about the game types, the leveling system and the campaign but nah, I'm to lazy.
EDIT: I just remembered that I gave myself a Halo themed avatar haven't I? That now makes this post and all the effort I put into this completely ignored because of course I'm a fanboy. Well if you did have the decency to read this post please forgive any typos and grammatical errors. I can not be bothered to proof read it.
