The games are very similar and if you read the article the game was to follow a very similar path to Halo. They may be (mostly) different teams, but as I said the direction from the Developer (Bungie) would still be the same. However you're still ignoring my point that the game wouldn't have been bad had it not been for unforeseen problems that Bungie had faced. They even had the same lead as Halo - Joe Staten.