For multiplayer, add dedicated servers. You can't possibly tell me a company such as Microsoft and a game as popular as Halo could not afford to use some of the sales money and XBL money on dedicated servers for their top games. Halo, CoD, and GoW would all benefit greatly with the dedicated servers.

I know most here don't have a miitary background but just for clarity, Master Chief is a Navy rank, not an MOS.

I know, I know, quoting myself.  I just wanted to add some more thoughts.

I have seen Halo 3 get upwards of over a million active gamers on at one time.  Granted this was near the launch and holiday seasons and the average is usually around 250k people online at peak hours.

To manage this, each "server" could host at least 250 people depending on the hardware and the number of matches per server.  Some servers could probably manage close to 1000 people if they organize the servers right and use the best server hardware.  That means just a server cluster of 250 servers could hold down the fort, and for the opening/busy times they could add another 250-500 servers.  Then as the usage declines they could reallocate those servers to a new game releasing or to other games as needed.

The price of a great server with exceptional hardware would run you around the $5-10k range.  So for dedicated servers it would only be about $1.25-2.5 million of server costs to support the average user count and $3.75-7.5 million for max users/opening costs.  And since not all the opening cost servers would be needed later on, they could reallocate for another game on the cheap.  Halo selling 5 million copies in a very short period of time already nets them about $100-200 million....  so please.  Dedicate those servers, MS! 

$7.5 million seems like a great investment into a smoother gaming experience.  Or perhaps just use the dedicated servers for matches of 8 or more players and leave 2v2 or 1v1 or free-for-all 8 player matches to use P2P.

I'm just speculating because lately it seems MS's matchmatking system has decided to start picking the worst hosts for these P2P matches which makes them lag.  I should pretty much always be host, and every time I am, there is absolutely no lag, but I rarely get host with my 25mbps download and 15mbps upload speeds.

I wouldn't mind them using dedicated servers, but I really do not want them to alter the matchmaking system. It would be more difficult to implement the system with dedicated servers, but maybe the effort would be worth it. I do not want to have to browse server lists though, and I really do not like the same people from both teams going from match to match. I am just such a big fan of matchmaking.

Water vehicles. Could you imagine little assault boats on Valhalla streams!

Definitely don't want them to abandon the matchmaking system.  It is nearly perfect except for determining Host a lot of the time.

I just want either improved Host choosing so that the games don't lag as often and actually pick people with good ping and upload speeds, or implement dedicated servers into the matchmaking.

I'll just say this; I hate the matchmaking system in Halo as bad as I hate the system in Gears 2. I WANT PLAYER MATCHES WHERE YOU CAN CHOOSE THE GAME. They got it perfectly for Halo CE on the computer and Gears 1.

Sorry, but hell no.  The Party system and matchmaking are the best thing to happen to online gaming.  Microsoft liked Halo 2's system so much they made it a large chunk of the backbone of Live.  I enjoy the idea of a match.  Team vs team.  Dedicated servers are disorganized and less competitive.  In my opinion at least.

I think Bungie already knows how to make a good Halo game, and if the pull of a great single player this title will be amazing...

But personally, i'm sick of Bungie dedicating themselves only to Halo titles, i want a different IP from them, i don't see one since the Marathon, Myth and Oni days...

Take the art style back to realism like in Halo 2. Make the visuals extremly gorgeous and fix some issues and make forge easier to use and other issues.