If you've managed to resist the urge to jump the Halo 3 multiplayer ship for the new Call of Duty 4 multiplayer luxury yacht, get ready to queue up some downloads because Microsoft and Bungie have just announced a new "Heroic Map Pack", three brand new multiplayer maps available from the Xbox Live Marketplace from December 11.

Available for 800 Microsoft Points exclusively on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, each map presents a totally different play style. Standoff's symmetrical valley, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types, while Rat's Nest's vast, labyrinthine passages bring something new to the "Halo" multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise, strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, ideal for big team battles. Finally, Foundry is the ultimate Forge map – players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, place stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

In addition to this, the next "Heroic Map Pack" will be available in August of 2008, at which time, the December release will be made available for free. Pretty cool. Who says Microsoft doesn't love ya?, huh?