The BBC wonders why Halo 1 has created so much enthusiasm for the sequel; and to find out, they asked HBO's Claude "Louis Wu" Errera:

Bungie got everything right. They were really careful to make sure everything worked the way it was supposed to.

Nothing distracts you when you were playing. There was nothing in Halo that had not been done before but everything in there was as good as it could be.

SFGate.com also did a writeup on fan expectations for the game, and spoke to Miguel "Freewill" Chavez of Bungie Sightings and Brian "Blackstar" Josselyn of Blackstar Productions.