First it was Halo 2's online stats, game viewer and RSS feeds. Now, MechAssault 2 introduces the concept of Conquest. While Halo 2's online gaming experience is awesome, it doesn't lead anywhere - each game is completely unrelated to the others. But with Conquest, each battle impacts the ownership of planets in the galaxy. Each player joins one of the five houses and then can participate in the galactic war. Planet ownership is based on the results of battles fought there. You can see the current map of the galaxy as well as war updates at any time. (But no RSS feed for the war updates - what's up with that?)
The only bad thing is that MechAssault 2 doesn't appear to have any per game stats like Halo 2 has. Wouldn't that be a great experience - Halo 2's game viewer and per game stats combined with MechAssault 2's conquest metagame.