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Well…

A single-player demo of an online game might not be the best idea ever. I’ve just played the first of the two included missions.

PRO: The mech(a) feels nicely stompy. Weapon power and reload rates feel about right. (Though I hope there’s some chain gun type of thing in the full game.) It looks nice and clean in hi-def. Explosions are nice. The online stuff still sounds really interesting.

CONS: Apart from the mech(a), the graphics are all a bit dull and look rather like an original Xbox game being played in hi-def. The mission design is absolutely terrible. You have to pick out tiny ant-sized men in a group of buildings and the demo won’t end until you kill every single one. It’s very, very tedious. My legs died completely – health bar down to nothing – and all that happened was that I walked a bit more slowly. Hmm. Debris flies into the air and disappears – I know most games do that sort of thing, but surely in this day and age it could stay lying around the level?

So, overall, it seems to feel good, but it’s nothing special to look at, but not offensive at all. And it still feels like an online game – so why release a tedious single-player demo? I’m still hopeful it’ll work well on Live, but if people get put off by the demo – which they seem to be – will there be many people to play with? If it’s just me and the ultra-hardcore then I’m not going to have much fun.

I don’t think I’ll cancel my preorder… but there’s a fairly good chance it’ll go back after a week and be swapped for Prey.