@Starcraft: What the h*ll are you talking about? Darth is not being hypocritical WHATSOEVER.
The first two Banjo games revolved around running, jumping, punching, solving puzzles, and learning new abilities. Nuts and Bolts revolves around building vehicles. Nothing wrong with it, but completely different from its' predecessors.
The first two God of Wars revolved around running around being a badass and beating the ever-loving shit out of wave after wave of heavily-armed enemies, and fighting awe-inspiring bosses. God of War 3 will be the exact same, with a different fighting system. Having multiple characters does not change the formula whatsoever. To use your example, in no way did playing as the Arbiter in Halo 2 change the formula--you were still running aroundwith a bunch of allies, taking out Covenant. What's your point? These things they're adding to GoW3 are refinements.