You Can Quit Hating Microsoft Now

Or maybe this is reason to hate them more for some (from Kotaku)

If you're going to let people play your game before it's released, you may as well get guys and girls who have some reference point as to how a battle rifle actually works. Their feedback at this stage of development would be invaluable.

In what was either the afore-mentioned beta testing idea or a Christmas present to US soldiers in Iraq (admittedly, most probably the latter), Bungie flew some early-build copies of Halo 3 out so American troops not able to get home for the holidays could at least get some kind of Christmas cheer.

Sounds like a pretty good thing they're doing. Let's see Apple, Nintendo or Sony get shamed into doing something similarly generous.