in response to you all.. another ms bashing thread. Publisher vs Developer... booring...
ping doesn't mean smooth gameplay. if you have any decent online game set up for ping you could quite easily be sending next to nothing in terms of packets/sec, which will cause bad net performance. I also hope you're commenting on the console code, either that or you're probably talking about a 1.5beta code which slipped out online, which didn't have internet multiplay code, only LAN.
as for the pace of the game.. this isn't quake3. You might take a look at the relatively non-existant quake3 scene now, and kind of realise that fast paced quake rocket jumping isn't for everyone :-) the single player game is perfectly paced, and not that much different to most other modern single player first person shooters.
the single player sucks? t'was the first unscripted interactive squad based shooter with excellent ai, graphics, sound, story and gameplay i'd played, and it was on a console! Been PC gaming since the days of doom and heretic so i've seen them all come and go. Halo was the best and most immersive single player experience after halflife.
Granted, that was a long 2 years ago and a lot changes in gaming in that time. the single player on the pc version offers nothing new. But then considering that halflife1 console conversions came out much after the pc release - and i wonder how many console owners were bitching like a bunch of kids like you are! ;-)
as for halo being soley for mac.. i think, correct me if i'm wrong, that it was slated for pc and mac from day one, or at least very early on. But having the initial game spec change so much in those early days i could be wrong.
as for the patch to address online play. Again, much the same as any modern pc game which requires a cd key, only one person can play with that key - authentication to a master server to check for uniqueness. No amount of cracking will get you on to a authenticated server. There are as with most hacked games tho cracked servers to play on, usually with crap pings, and usually in the case of games like quake3 / cs, full of cheaters. For the amount of time you get for the price of a pc game, hassle free, i can't really see why anyone would want to play illegally online. sux0rs tbh.
oh, plus chances are most of you whiners haven't played it off the xbox. :-)