I'm torn on the style.
I love sitting down to start a new game in Halo (1, please!) and getting off that damned grey ship and into the sort of fantasy, but not cartoony, exaggerrated, but not over the top landscapes. Now, with H3... the prospect of seeing that world painted with pin sharp textures and slathered with delicate lighting.....
On the otherhand, where it comes up short for me, and I suspect for others, is that it's somehow unsatisfying. Perhaps they could have evolved it a bit somehow. How, I don't know.
There's been alot of talk about H3 not living up to expectations, but how many of us took time to reallyconsider what it was we were expecting. Here is Bungie sticking to their guns with the style. Not getting all "dark" and "gritty" with it. Competantly apply 3.2ghz and a half gig of ram to the Halo aesthetic and you get what we see here.
It is kind of subtle, but I think viewed objectivly it stands up to the best of the rest.
The montage shown at the E3 conferance surely did it no favors, tho. The best qualities of the graphics seem to be revealed with careful viewing.