Bruce has a pretty good ES blog posting on the studios closing.
http://www.ensemblestudios.com/blogs/bshelley/archive/2008/09/22/ensemble-studios-closing.aspx
I think I might phrase my opinion of the decision to close the studio with a little more ... emotion, but hopefully that gets around the intertubes and can clear up at least some of the factual errors (like that there were immediate layoffs -- there were not).
On as more positive note, I'm having a blast with Rock Band 2 and Warhammer Online (and a ton of other great releases in the past month). I suspect work on Halo Wars is really going to amp up as we want to finish it out in style and with the love it deserves, so that may cut into my future gaming time a bit...