Itll probably come to XBLA by the end of the year....hopefully.

if it was coming out on 'windows' i wouldnt have a problem, being forced to use 8 to play it however is where i have the problem, as such theyre using it as a trojan to coax people on to windows 8.

ill wait till someone patches it to run on win7 or it appears on x360, my desktop is staying windows 7

But Windows 8 is great so your whole trojan horse analogy is wrong.

OT: Bought it last night and it's a pretty good game so far. I'll hook up my blutooth keyboard and mouse to play it though since I can't stand the touch controls (I wish a 360 controller would work with the Surface RT).

Windows 8 is effectively great! The game is actually based on the new Windows/Metro UI framework (hence Windows 8) so it can run on RT (ARM CPU) and PC; don't expect this to run on Windows 7 like Halo 2 :)

I love the game so far and it is fun to play with keyboard/mouse combo. They added challenges and way to replay each level to get better scores and all that.

For the 360 controller, the wired version works like a charm on the Surface RT; not sure if you tried it and I play few games with it already.
A patch for Halo Spartan Assault will come later with 360 wired controller support, so stay tunned :)

Really? You can just plug in a wired 360 controller and play? I figured it wouldn't work since I can't even get it to effectively work on my Windows 8 PC.

It is not a trogan in any way. Its just like Sony not releasing Uncharted on PC or 360....you don't put your shit on the competition, no matter what their marketshare is.

Given how Windows 7 aren't bundled at retail at all anymore, new PC buyers are forced to get Windows 8. So really, there ain't a trojan horse.

Has anyone played it? How is it??

I think you teo are kinda lost on the concept of software being used as a trojan horse, it doesnt matter if the product theyre enticing you to use is 'great', if youre restricting its use to one particular version of your software then you are forcing people to update in order to partake in the use of said software, the fact the game is not currently on xbla is further proof that the game is being used to push w8 software/device sales just as halo 2 was used to entice people to vista.

The 'wouldnt put uncharted on a competitors system' analogy is just silly, because windows 7 is a microsoft product, one with a much higher install base.

If you dont have a windows mobile device running windows 8 (even 7.8 isnt supported), or a pc running win8 (7 and lower isnt supported) then you cant play it,

You could say 'its the same as ps3 updates, you cant play a new game till you update' but ps3 updates are free, windows 8 is not.

i wonder how your view would be if sony and microsoft released a system update for the ps3 and 360 then a hot new game that required the update, but they both demanded you actually BUY the update to play, would you still be fine with it? i doubt it.

Even if i wanted to update to win8 to play it i couldnt as a lot of the hardware i used for work is at a prototype level with custom buily drivers, wasting time writing new ones to support win8 just doesnt make sense when the setup and OS we use now does the job just fine.

But dont take my word for it, go check out various halo forums, the general consensus there about this games win8 lockdown is more or less the same as my view, halo franchise is being used as the carrot yet again.

the first halo game ever which i don't buy day 1! have no windows 8 device

Even the wireless 360 controller works as long as you have the little dongle that connects it to the PC... I used surface RT and 360 wirless controller on a plane to play SNES emulator and other games 2 weeks ago.

Its up to each game to implement X360 controller support and most do.