[Alpha]

Yep. Initially I'd recommend being online to make sure it's all working and such, but yeah, you can play offline. Just the campaign and matches against AIs obviously, but it has enough content to make it worth it.

I played my account since the core game, but don't think I would ever sell it. Memories of playing it and downing raids, etc., etc.

I tend to play both fantasy and sci-fi games...and read novels of the same sort. Heh...well, I have high hopes for it since it is from the original creators of Halo. There are so many ways that it can go badly though...

Yeah, I understand that. It really does. Perhaps in the future they will design it so that you can do split screen literally between two screens. Would alleviate some of the problem, but not all.