One thing I liked about some of the prior games was that when I was fighting, it was easy to tell that when I was under fire, the bullets that pinged off my shields gave a damage indication as to what direction I was hit from in a 360 degree fashion. This means that if I was hit from behind on the right side, then the indicators would display as such. Granted, it never told me if I was hit from above or below, but it was definately told me the direction I needed to go to escape further damage and come back to fight again.
Even if you don’t try to escape, at least the indicators helped in turning back around and fight back properly instead of trying to find which direction and kill him before he killed you. Granted turning around is’nt always the best course of action, but it was still a viable option.
I heard similar complaints in Halo 2 (Never played on LIVE at the time) and Reach, where it only showed you a left and right arrow, which does’nt always help in escaping near death. Hopefully the return of the 360 damage indicators will be making its return in H4.