You're buying the Collection for Halo 2 MP. All the stuff you listed is the reason why people hate Halo 4.
No I'm not.
There's only one Call of Duty and one Battlefield currently on the Xbox One. There's also Titanfall. Relatively, there's little competition for the AAA FPS crowd. Destiny launches soon, but I don't know how well the long term lifeline idea that game promotes will actually work. Sunset Overdrive comes in a few months, but it's a new IP, and may not be an amazing seller. The modern shooter crowd will be looking for a title to play on their new system. Even after the new Call of Duty releases, that's only 6 big titles for this Halo Collection to compete against. I don't doubt each Halo title will have a select group of loyal gamers that will strictly play that one mutiplayer game, but I expect there to be many people who go back to a particular Halo title and find it hasn't aged well. That's what I mean by Halo 4 potentially seeing a surge, as the modern setup it offers may be more comfortable to current gamers.
Halo 3 went free to Games with Gold recently, and while the game saw a brief jump in the population, it lost it almost as quickly. Even Halo: Reach had a title update that offered the ability in some playlists to remove armor abilities and add a 3 shot pistol. Similarly, that game saw a jump in the population, but then the numbers declined and those playlists were either removed or further restricted. Complaints that I read about Halo 3 when it came to Gold for free was that the game was too slow. Halo: Reach saw some of the same complaints, that movement was slow, kills took to long to happen, and the lack of sprint made matches take longer because navigating around open areas was a death trap. While I do understand their points, back in 2007 people were fine with this and were able to play the game as it was. Now there are people who find it dated. That's what I'm basing this off of; numbers and reaction. People talk about previous entries and the way things were and how great it was, but when it's brought back they see how sluggish and un-modern it is. You don't realize it, but you adapt to the current standards just like game designers do, which is why going back to older games can be cumbersome, as the designs for that period may have seemed revolutionary, but now are just ugly.
GoldenEye was brought up here, and while I agree that the game was fantastic those many years ago, it has not aged well. Using the C-buttons back then seemed brilliant to allow me to freely use the control still to navigate the horizontal plane, while I looked up or down with the respective C-button, or strafed with the right or left C-button, but now it would just be weird to use that controller or sort of in game setup. Even if the controls were adapted to a dual stick setup, the design of cycling through weapons, or having to pause to select a specific gadget would still be complained about. It's why the idea of GoldenEye ever being ported or remastered is better as a thought than an actual release. Perfect Dark was remastered, and yet the online multiplayer for that game was dead not even months after release. Yet when Perfect Dark Zero came out there were numerous people going on about how much better the original was, and how that game should've been brought to the Xbox 360 in some way. It was done, even adding the online functionality, and yet it wasn't the massively popular game people begging for it made it seem like it would be.
The people who played Halo 2 a decade ago are now a decade older, and they probably have more busy lives now. The people who played Halo 4 a whole 2 years ago will only be 2 years further into their lives, making the game likely to have a consistent population. That's what I mean by the previous games being popular for the first few weeks due to hype and nostalgia, but the more modern game having the lasting audience.
Don't underestimate the new audience though.
I think that as well. It's a new console, new beginning. My cousin bought Halo 2 and was one of the first buyers of an Xbox. He rarely plays any more, but amassed many hours in Halo 2. His son now plays games, and plays Halo 4 online regularly (yes, one of those annoying squeak voices...). He doesn't play the older Halos, and when I tried playing Halo 3 with him he called it boring. My cousin went on about how he tried to get him to play Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo 2 on the 360 and he just didn't like them.
There's always going to be newcomers, even if the numbers aren't mammoth.
Again, I'm not saying 4 is the best one, but it's the most modern. And the question was about which game people think will be most populated, not which one people have the most nostalgia for.