I liked it, but I’d prefer a different background. I’m not too fond of “epic battle” backgrounds, despite how cool that one is. I do love the blue filter, though. It just screams Halo 2. Softly. It screams softly.
I’d love another 3D background with a panning camera going through the updated New Mombasa, as in the original game, eerily silent with bangs and cracks of battle dimly in the background, as well as fading or pulling out to a very detailed version of the Battle of Earth in orbit, ships exploding and fighting each other, panning past Covenant and UNSC ships and smaller ships battling, then maybe to a panorama above Delta Halo similar to Alpha Halo in CE’s menu with just the Halo ring rotating and High Charity floating above it, then the flying camera pulls off smoothly and slowly goes inside High Charity, still and ghostly with Honour Guards standing around and a few Covenant going about their business with maybe a few ships below the central dome and some Banshees flying around (or it could be completely empty and devoid of life), but resplendent in all its glory, past the Dreadnought and through the corridors and rooms to the Mausoleum of the Arbiter, fading to white at that opening of that central structure where the Arbiter’s armor is and reappearing back in New Mombasa.
Or they could just do that in the end credits, showcasing all the levels and locations by flying through them, as in the original Spyro trilogy. Either way, depending on how they did the main menu, the blue filter might have to be toned down or removed, but I personally think it adds atmosphere.
I do like the addition of Campaign, Multiplayer (classically named, not stupid Infinity!), Forge (makes me very happy, especially if it was actually a map editor in disguise!), Custom Games (pls gib H3 and later custom options), and THEATRE
especially for Campaign! The Halo 5 Beta would be so great as well.
As for the UI, I’d prefer it to be centred and the Anniversary part of the logo and the “press start” to be more Halo-ish. I do like the lower case in the menu, though, and maybe it wouldn’t have to be centred, depending on the UI (hopefully it’d be like Reach’s in functionality but thematically looking like Halo 2’s and 3’s with lots of blue).
Finally, I’d love reorchestrated versions of the menu songs (the H2 version of the Halo theme (chant), that final epic part of “The Last Spartan”, Heavy Price Paid, Unforgotten, and Remembrance (with the strings, essentially the first half of Ghosts of Reach). I’d want it redone like Halo 3’s remade music, which was very high quality and actually true to the original CE and H2 music to the point that I prefer the exact but reorchestrated remakes, not like CEA’s music, which in my opinion was pretty bad sounding and inaccurately paced, especially in comparison to the original synthed tracks.