That's actually my personal biggest complaint. The art and sound design changes. I probably didn't mention it because I do my best to forget it. At least H2:A gets it right. Mostly. Well, for art. Not sound.

: Oh, and don't forget that they technically retconned the Forerunners from
: being an offshoot of humanity to being a separate alien species. That
: makes them less interesting to me.

I really like that actually. I'm glad they didn't do the obvious and generic thing that Bungie would have done.