Well Jetpacks, different loadouts, loadout-based skills and weapons, vehicles (i know halo has always had them) in a team class-based combat game is at least somewhat a tribes clone. The intense tribes/team fortress push here makes even the boring Halo universe look fun.

I can't wait to read all the threads about how innovate and awesome it is that Bungie came up with such an original idea.

Firstly IMO, Halo is the most interesting universe in gaming aside from Mass Effect. 2ndly, Halo was innovative in terms of limited weapons holding. But apart from that what makes Halo isnt the innovation as such. But implementation. Halo always new what it was, and hasn't changed to suit other FPS changes. The minute Halo strays from it's formula, is the minute it loses players. After all it's a completely different experience than the usual FPS clones on consoles these days ( KZ2, MW2, BFBC2 ) etc. They are all similar. Halo is so different from them. It would explain why Halo 3 still can pull in more Live users than MW2 most weeks. MW1 had some weeks above Halo 3 but Halo 3 got back on top after like 2 months of MW1 being out. 2 different tastes.

Reach looks amazing. I thought DVD was recently touted as a hinderence to HD Gaming. With 720p Native res, 4xMSAA and more content than any other shooter ever in 1 package at what point does DVD show it's strains?