I like it. -The spartan's face seems oversharpened to me (almost pixel-defect-ey), but you could have been going for that. -The swirl effect seems a bit pixelated as well. I'd like to see a bit more depth to that bit. -Otherwise, I like it. Good use of a lot of stuff. I wish I could work in colors like that.
I just messed around with the colorize tool, and i dont know what to do about the swirl effect, but thanks, you gave a much nicer review than someone at viralgfx...