ShadowWolf64
Regular
Not sure you can infer the "tone" for reach from those shots to be fair... the lighting enginer seems to me to be heavily updated giving a much more realistic look to the game. However the Halo series has been well known for it's excellent use of colour in a genre that is very much known for it's "greys & browns".
I'm not sure as well that Microsoft will want to exclude the mass millions of young players who bought and played H2&3 by slapping reach with an M rating, simply because Halo CE had an M rating (it also didn't sell as much at the subsequent games).
Considering this will likely be Bungie's last Halo, and the next BIG Halo game in the series since H3, I'm quite sure that MS would be looking to capture as much of the Halo-loving installed base as possible. An "M" rating on reach would be a mistake from a business perspective IMHO.
I highly doubt that considering Halo 3's ESRB rating is M for mature anyways and that game went on to sell milions of copies worldwide.Also, its up to Bungie if they want to have Gears of War like gore and not up to MS.Im sure whatever they do with Halo Reach MS will let it happen.Mind you, if it wasn't for the Halo series, there wouldn't even be an xbox 360 to begin with.