This is looking fucking awesome. I love how they're revamping the whole online portion of Halo. The Arena is the best idea to come out of Bungie in forever.

Can't wait.

they have added so many addictive elements there it looks very tempting...

looks at JaggedSacs Reach Beta pics............can't stop drooling.

I hope the rest of the items are more varied than those 4 because they all look very similar and barely any different. I hope they have entirely different models you can unlock too, kind of like UT and Quake back in the day. Man, what happened to player model variety over the years?

Do you know if they will have unlockable models? Of the little picture at the bottom there it seems that only 5 of the options they showed will really set the player apart during the heated action of the game.

Bungie employee LukeSmith responds to a question about customization options:

Possibly more customisation in the final game? Hawt!

"Not possibly, definitely.

The Beta is but a taste, a sip from a beer cup.
You'll be doing kegstands this fall."

That'd be way awesome. I'm tired of games where everyone has more or less the same friken model.

Bungie doesn't really like having models with drastically different hit boxes.  It affects gameplay balance.  They have isolated Elite vs Spartan battles into a seperate mode.  As for models within the same hitbox, I am not sure, I think they are going for a generic starting point and allowing the player to drastically alter the overall appearance of their character.