When you have a masterpiece you tend to not paint over it and start fresh.  The multiplayer in Halo 3 will be vary familiar to those that played Halo 2.  You can play create a party and choose to play a private match with friends or venture out to play against others.  What they did do is tweak a few things to make multiplayer even better.

One of the biggest gripes I had with Halo 2 multiplayer was voice communication.  In team matches it was annoying to hold down the talk button and in rumble pit is was annoying to hear all the jerks curse and talk junk. Well both have been fixed.  Now when you play Lone Wolf (Solo slayer) everyone is muted and there is no voice.  In Team matches with four people or less the voice chat is now open so no more worrying about whether you help down the talk button.  You will also see an icon in the lower right hand side of the screen that will show if you are actually talking as well.

The other big change is the way you are ranked in Halo 3.  You will gain experience points as you play games and those points will reflect your military grade.  Everyone starts out as a recruit and can level up to become a general.  The rankings take into consideration all multiplayer game you play.  You will also get a level ranking for ranked games.  This number is used like they were from Halo 2.  I hope that as they reset your level they keep the military rankings intact.

Other than those changes not much has changed.  You have a lot more detailed stat screens and now have personal screens so people can see your previous stats and how far you've gotten in the campaign.  The graphics polished and you now can see how many people are online and where they are in the world.  A map with lights shows where people are signed on.  It's cool to see people are playing Halo 3 in New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark and Rio.