Holy crap on a cracker, that was slaughterific. My interest just rocketed from "vague with concerns about the delay and uncertainty surrounding co-op" to "holy crap I gotta play that NOW NOW NOW!!!". Funny how a good demo can do that. But I still hope they release some awesome co-op ASAP.

<3

Definitely one of the most impressive demo's I've played in a long time.

The storyline to me seems a bit cultish and not easy for a newbie to just plunge right in. But the graphics were smooth, and the controls were easy to master within 5 minutes. To best describe it - it plays much like TF: War for Cybertron, but with more weapons and no transformation (unless you consider the jetpack chapter.) I almost would compare it to Gears of War, though the lack of the roadie-run cover along with the square(or X button on Xbox) melee button to swing a sword to hack apart dozens of enemies at once makes the game as much a hack-n-slash as it is a shooter.

I like it. Definitely on my top spot in my Gamefly que.

I set the game on easy and as per usual I had my backside handed to me! Still enjoyed the demo, but will need to pratice if I plan to get past the first level! Bring back point and clicks that's what I say!

Well, I'm really surprised to see folks write everywhere that the demo went beyond their expectations, that it is sooo good etc.. I don't know how low these expectations were so that this demo is able to make the game shine for them, but I had much higher expectations... I played it and I didn't like it one bit. The gfx are not impressive, compare it to GoW and start crying. The controls are clunky and the animation of the SM are clunky. They wanted to make them feel heavy, but their movement doesn't feel heavy, but again - clunky. The GoW characters are as heavy as the SM and they are able to move around much more smoothly and still give the impression of big guys in heavy armor. There is no AI in the game, neither on your side nor on the enemies side. The Orks are standing around in groups waiting for the player to cross the trigger line that sets them into motion. Your comrades are useless, they are just standing around and seldom do anything - they stand there, knowing that they are invincible so why shoot back is what they think it seems. You have a strict go from A to B, hit this button and open that door approach. It feels like walking through a tunnel, there's no feeling of decision or real battle. The weapons don't sound like bolter guns, but like pimped out waterpistols. When you hit the d-pad to choose a new weapon there's always this silly weapon menu popping up so that you don't see what's happening around you. The combat is always the boring same button mashing, X, the Y-Stun for the B-Finisher, which has one animation (or perhaps two?). The 'innovative' gain health thru kills feature feels weird, it has no back up in the stories/fluff where the SM do take cover and fight like thinking soldiers and if you have low health there's only the chance to go in for the next executioner kill crossing fingers that it will work, otherwise back to checkpoint. The orks have apparently one person speaking all of them and he sounds like a bored man, not like an Ork full of wrath and they always say the same one liner. Bottom line is (imho of course) this game doesn't play like what I expected it to be and it does definitely not do the Warhammer 40k license justice. Based on this demo I actually doubt it will be a good game - campaign coop or not. I'm seriously disappointed and it seems everybody else has downloaded a different demo that I.

...than I

I didn't like the demo, played it then uninstalled it. This is def one of those games I might consider picking up in the baragin bin but then again I doubt it... there are just way to many stellar games coming out compared to this.

The demo is still installing from yesterday, so I haven't gotten to check it out yet. I did enter the contest though!

Andreas-

I don't have an XBox, so I've never played Gears. That said, the character felt heavy to me, not clunky, and I thought the graphics were quite solid for a multi platform title. Far from the best-looking title ever, but hardly anything to complain about, either — I was pleased.

More generally, maybe I enjoyed it because I didn't have any particular expectations. I've never played anything in the Warhammer universe, I've never read a Warhammer novel, I know next to nothing about the milieu and the backstory and how everything is supposed to work and whether the execute-enemies-to-regain-health mechanic is a grotesque violation of the fundamental ethos of the license. So I freely admit that it might be a terrible Warhammer game, but that won't necessarily prevent it from still being a good game.

Heck, it might not even be a good game. The demo was too short to form any definite conclusions about enemy variety, plot interest, level design, or most other things. That said, I think a couple of your criticisms are unwarranted. Allies may not have been tremendously useful, but they did shoot and kill some of the orks, and I wouldn't really want them being too effective in combat anyway, because then they'd take away from my fun. And I didn't think the orks were as stupid as you did. There were orks in high positions shooting at me from cover, they used grenades to flush me out of cover, groups of gun-wielding orks would spread out and surround me to make it harder to take them out and to do more damage to me while I attacked them… I'm not sure how much more I could've asked for in the brief sections the demo offered. And the melee combat seemed combo-rich even if I didn't have time to acquaint myself with all the options and try out more than a few.

In the end, I liked the demo so much because the violent destruction of enemies was hugely satisfying without being either too hard or too easy. (I played on normal difficulty, FWIW, and I'm certainly no expert in this genre, but I have played and enjoyed all the GoW games — that's God of War for you XBox folk.) If we've seen everything the full game has to offer, it'll be disappointing. But if the demo was just a taste, I bet I'm going to have an awesome time playing it.

Well this goes to show, you can't please everyone.

I am a big Gears of War fan, and yes - there's a huge difference in the graphics between Gears and Warhammer.

So? Where is it written that all games should be pushing the reality envelope with every single game? That's for military combat games like Ghost Recon, SOCOM, Call of Duty, and Battlefield. This is sci-fi.

Now, given - this is my 1st foray into the Warhammer universe.

The game style and controls to me are an apples to apples comparison for Gears and Warhammer. Both games are 3rd person over the shoulder games. But when comparing the apocalyptic Gears to the Roman Empire like regal Ultramarines in Warhammer - I feel the graphics are on par for the art style. It's impossible to make reality on a future sci-fi vision, so why not keep some comic book style elements? I like the art. The graphics do not suffer from it, nor was there any framerate problems or noticable glitchiness or lag. It was a very smooth and polished demo.

I still feel Warhammer is being made for a built-in fanbase, thus it's not going to be a smash hit. But I found the demo fun, and that's at least worth a rental at this point.

--- Replying to WildCard Zen -----

But isn't Gears primarily a third-person shooter with some minimal melee elements added? (Sort of like Uncharted in that respect, or possibly even with less focus on melee.) Because I got the very strong sense that Space Marine was all about the combo-based melee combat and that God of War would be a much more apt comparison.

Not that I found the demo the equal of the best the God of War franchise has to offer (certainly not graphically, and not gameplay-wise either) but it was still a ton of brutal fun in a bit-sized serving.

Sure Gears is a TPS with melee, but the melee combat could be right out of the Warhammer rule book, you have a weapon as a COG soldier that could also be used by the SMs. It's not so much that I want a copy of the Gears franchise with this game, it's quite the opposite - it looks too much like a bad copy of Gears to me and that (with my other points of criticism - gfx was just one point...) is what I don't like. It seems that Warhammer was the inspiration at least for games like Gears (the big guys in their 'power' armor) and Halo (the more-than-human Master Chief with his scifi suit) and so when a real Warhammer 40k game is in the making I feel disappointed that it seems to fail in what counts AI, voices, atmosphere, useful comrades, interesting battles and yes campaign coop. The gfx is the most unimportant aspect here, but since the rest is not what I expected, not that good gfx adds to my disappointment. Since so many gamers seem to like what they see and play in the demo I suppose it will be a success of some sort, but the designers have been too much hype-tooting about their game that I will accept that as the best they could do. Perhaps that's the case, or perhaps the game will be much better than the demo, don't know, but if the game is the demo just in longer than I have to say it is disappointing. I think the game that is meant as a teaser for the SM game, Kill Team is much better with regards to the 40k feeling and it has...coop Anyway, enjoy the game I think I'll pass this one.

wow, a lot of mixed feelings on this game. I thought the demo was awesome. Of course, I went in knowing nothing of warhammer other than the fact I recently played and had a blast with Dawn of War 2 and it's expansion. I could care less about the rules and lore of the universe and think its unnecessary to compare it to other similar games. It was a polished and, most importantly, fun demo and I will definatly be playing the full game sometime soon.