First......This is a direct copy and paste from Bungie News at the end of the first week of play on Reach......
70 Million+ Games have been played
235 Million+ Player-Games have been played
2 Million+ Files have been uploaded to File Shares
5,901 man-years have been spent in online Reach games (sorry, Corporate America!)
20 Million Daily challenges have been completed
709,840 Weekly challenges have been completed
165 Billion Credits have been earned
.......a mere single digit fraction of that still play the game. A majority of people who tried the game left it.
Second......343 Ind. themselves have stated that the game, ie. maps, will become part of the Reach play list and be incorporate into the regular game types. With only one limited "Classic" playlist without AA. Listen to the original OP, me and others when we say we wanted a game that was going to return to it's roots, as promised. Here is a copy and paste of a HBO/343 Inds. interview.
HBO: What's in the package for $40? One disc, or two? Are multiplayer and campaign separated like ODST, or are both on one disc, allowing switching in a lobby instead of swapping discs? The Reach DLC is not included - but are the original Reach multiplayer maps? If the only Halo game you owned was Halo: Anniversary, what could you play, exactly?
343i: This will be one retail disc, 39.99, everything launches out of one menu. It's kind of like a one-disc ODST - obviously it doesn't have the other DLC, because most people who buy this are going to have Reach already.
It just has the 7 new maps - Reach's original multiplayer maps are not included.
If you just have Reach, and you don't want to play this, we will make these available for separate purchase eventually. We're not saying how long 'eventually' is right now, but it's not an amount of time that will upset anyone.
There will be a playlist for just these maps. Reach players will be able to directly play seamlessly in that playlist, and those maps will also be integrated into other playlists. We'll try and make a very central place to play just these maps, so there'll be a good population, but eventually they'll end up in all lists. We're going to do significant stuff with matchmaking playlists to make sure that these are respectful of original system link-type games. You know how there's a Classic playlist right now? Imagine that, but plus-plus, and some other stuff we can't talk about right now.