When the DPAD staff sat down at the start of the year to look at what major game releases were on tap for 2007 we couldn't ignore popular titles like Madden NFL 08 or Bioshock, but all titles pale in comparison to the popularity of Halo 3. The game has presold millions of copies and gamers are expected to slam Xbox Live starting at 12:01 AM September 25.

One of the biggest areas of success for the long term success of a game like Halo 3 is its reception at the competitive level. While we've only had the chance to play the beta, we at GotFrag DPAD see a lot of potential with the latest installment of MasterChief's firefights, but we are always encouraged to see the community's excitement.

Well, we did not have to look much farther than GameBattles, Major League Gaming's online venue for competitive gamers. Halo 3 is still a couple weeks from release, but GameBattles already has over 1,000 registered users for the upcoming season.

While it's too early to make a definitive statement, at this point we're predicting Halo 3 to far exceed the nearly 20,000 registered Gears of War teams and duos.

At GotFrag we'll be covering Halo 3 extensively with an initial review followed by steady and consistent coverage both online and offline.

Related: GotFrag to Cover GameBattles | Gears of War GB Coverage