I don't remember that at all, I thought it had the regular old info boxes at the bottom of the screen.

It had both, it wasn't all that obvious.

The tiny bars were quite tiny.

Entirely unrelated screenshot, but it's quite visible there. See the two semi-transparent bars next to the crosshair? The left one shows health, right one ammo IIRC. When your health/ammo drops too low, they become slightly less transparent and change color to red.

Interesting, I don't remember that at all.
Of course I don't really remember much from that game ;)

Perfect HUD. Nu bullshit info, only barebones what you need info, although the lower right menu could have been implented on weapons aswell (IDK how on crossbows, but on SMG-s and Pistols for example show ammo on some indicator on weapon or whatnot), but it would have been more work.

It actually looks a bit different still, but yeah, even then - the displayed digits only have slightly dimmed background to ensure they're always visible, otherwise it's about as unobtrusive as possible. I don't think weapon displays are more work as much as they quite simply would not work well with the setting.

I'm still a fan of relaying as much information directly trough the game or only display hud when it's relevant - this is what Far Cry 2 looks like most of the time. When you shoot, ammo counter gets briefly displayed - so does health when it drops. Otherwise... Well, let's just say that this is the map screen. Then Far Cry 3 added this monstrosity. *sigh*

Edit: Who the fuck needs a crouch indicator anyway?

C.H.U.D.'s are ugly and I hate them..

IMO Dead Space has the prefect HUD. Useful, minimalistic, and organic.

OMG I hated hud in deus ex 2. it was so horrible that I almost didn't want to play that game and I was a fan of the first one and when I finally did I didn't like it very much. Hud warned me..

+1 hate the circular hud bullshit.