My bro recently bought an X-Box, and we rented Halo. I've been playing it with some of my friends in both co-op and multiplayer these last couple of days, and I'm really enjoying it. I've been exclusively a PC gamer my whole life, and prefer the WASD FPS setup, but I've addopted to Halo's control scheme fairly quickly. Some of the things that I like, that were revolutionary back then, and pretty dam fun/impressive even now:
-an engine rendering huge outdoor environments and indoors with surprising quality
-ability to drive several vehicles. Flying the Banshee is awesome. Warthogg is also heckofalotoffun.
-diverse environments. Nice change of pace w/ different enemies/vehicles introduced. What I'm saying is, it ain't boring (although I haven't finished the campaign, so the flood is yet to tire me out)
-being able to rifle-butt my friend's virtual face, and then laugh at his face for real. Fun multiplayer & co-op in other words.
The game, in short, is colorful and fun, and has an aura (one could say a halo
) of excellence about it. I don't prefer it much to the PC FPS experience, but enjoy it for being new and different, at least for me.