Equipment known so far:
Bubble Shield (The one in the ad)
Portable Grav Lift
Trip Mine
Power Drainer (Drains shields and then explodes)
Radar Jammer (Puts lots of fake dots on the radar in area of effect)
Flare (Flashbang)
Personal Shield (Covenant shield emplacement from previous games, only blocks from one side allowing user to fire through)
Regenerator (Constantly charges shields while intact)
and more not yet shown
I'm gonna assume that you didn't play the Beta, so this may seem pretty rudimentary and not new. However, it really mixes things up in the gameplay. I suppose the best analogy would be a tilt in a pinball game, it may help you, or it may doom you.
As far as scale is concerned - one encounter on the second level as as many enemies/allies as all of the enemies and allies of the first level of Halo.
But everything else is classic Halo, if you didn't like the fundamental gameplay to begin with, nothing in this game is going to change your mind.