It is actually more common than you think. There are many games with locked off rooms with names that imply their purposes for testing, asset storage, etc. Skyrim is a common go-to example. There are entire rooms with names like "Smoke Test Cell", etc. And, they look pretty "finished", but were not intended for people to actually go to: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Editor_Smoke_Test_Cell The difference here is that Bungie appears to be staging content and assets for future releases, expansions, etc. If anything, they are fault for not having a better means to seal off the content until it is ready - because of how easy it is to get into, it is ripe for the "withholding content" arguments to gain a foothold. Only people that can speak to why the release was scaled back is Bungie and Activision. Given Bungie's reputation and apparent pride in what they do (and this is coming from a non-Xbox gamer), I tend to go with the logical argument that there were development-related issues that prevented the full release of what was shown in earlier releases. For all we know, they may have had to shut down entire areas of the cells that content was rendered on, in order to show the content that was shown. Perhaps the unreleased areas expose defects with their rendering engine or gameplay mechanics that they did not have fixed in time. I simply don't claim to know, and see no reason to look no further than the fact that I still do like this game - for exactly what I've gotten from it.