Sure, you're backtracking in the game. But I thought it was pretty obvious that Bungie was under some pressure to finish the game and needed to make it longer, thus the repetitive environments. They can explain it however they like, but that was the only bad thing about the game and it seemed pretty obvious that they were recycling levels.

Did it ever occur to you that other FPS are lengthy games that DON'T have you play the same level over, over, and over again. It can be done, and the fact that Halo did not offer the variety w/ regards to levels still exists.
You are right, this is indeed the prevailing reason for the lack of variety. In my opinion an excuse/reason for it doesn't make the issue any less glaring or a problem.

I agree, graphically the game is amazing. The game play is fun, and the shield system is different than most (arguably a bad thing). The checkpoints/load times couldn't be any better. The weapons are cool; you get to drive some cool vehicles.

I hope that this delay will allow bungie to make a game with more variety than Halo 1 - level wise that is.