: Do you mean something besides difficulty? I already said why difficulty
: shouldn't be an issue, and even if it became an issue I wouldn't care, the
: option to take four players and barrel over everything would still be nice
: to have, and this is the second time they've failed to deliver it.

Yes, difficulty, but also simple matters like having enough vehicles and having enough things for four players to do. The levels were not designed for more than two players. For it to be a good experience, the levels and probably the game engine would have to be changed to accommodate four players. That's a remake, not a revision.

: What are you talking about? No it wouldn't, they could easily still have all
: of the original gameplay plus the option to have two more players in
: co-op.

They've promised that it will be the game you remember just like they did with HCEA. If it's not the same engine, it won't be the same game. They're delivering the original experience enhanced, not a new experience. Letting you experience the original co-op experience online is probably doable because bandwidth limitations have changed.

:I know you mean well and you're happy but you're coming up with
: excuses for them, these are the kinds of things a marketer would say.

No, I'm not making excuses, and no, these are the kinds of things someone would say who grasps the importance of level design and balance in games, and how difficult those things are to create. I also have an idea of how difficult it is to make an engine accommodate something it was not designed to accommodate.

: Was four-player co-op also supposed to be in Halo 2?

No, and the game was designed around that reality.

:Was it ever planned or
: intended? I seem to remember that was among the many things were planned
: (at least in some form) and scrapped.

Two player online co-op was attempted. (You can see hints of it by looking at how Halo 2's UI was designed.) I remember reading that they had it working, but not working well enough, so it was scrapped. Considering that online four-player co-op barely worked in Halo 3 (on new hardware), worked a little better in ODST, and finally worked well with Reach (most of the time), it's clear what a challenge it's been to deliver a good co-op experience. Nice to have in Halo 2? Sure, if it was fun, but fun is hard to create and easy to screw up. ONE MORE TIME: the Halo 2 campaign was DESIGNED to be a two-player game at most. We're getting a spruced up version of THAT GAME.