Okay, got a code off of Twitter and played the demo. Some thoughts:

• A lot more dynamic conversations with people moving and taking action. If Bioware is diversifying from from the shoulders-up 3/4 view, then it should make dialogue a lot more fun to look at.
• Also, a lot of Shepard just saying stuff without me choosing it. I'm all for this. Making the player choose every line, even the most insignificant ones, just highlighted the hollowness of the whole system. I'm okay with fewer actual choices if scenes are more fluid as a result.
• Cover is still too sticky, and it's still a pain to navigate through spaces with a lot of furniture, etc., especially when under fire. Plenty of times when I just couldn't navigate around a corner smoothly and ended up getting shot.
• The thing with the little boy was unsubtle and waaaay on the nose. For shame, Bioware.
• Vanguard continues to be rad. My Charge detonated Liara's Singularity. I don't think it did that in ME2, but feel free to correct me. Excited to try out the other classes.
• Skill tree branches have me salivating just from looking at them. I already have my Vanguard build planned out, for some reason.

All in all, exactly what I expected it to be from preview coverage and footage. Which is a good thing. March 6th (my birthday) can't come soon enough.

My thoughts: I might actually be able to complete an insanity run with a vanguard with the new powers now.

2 days and couldn´t get a friggin code T_T , so cant play the demo , I´ll have to wait 1 day more

@Marz: Oh thank you thank you for the vid :D .... the game looks so friggin awesome and better than 1 and 2 !!!!! And I loved those 2 a lot.

@Dany said:

So fucking excited for Clint Mansell.

That is fucking awesome. Well I haven't played the demo yet but ME is my favorite franchise to come out of this generation and to see the reception of the demo overall great I'm feeling much better about ME3. I also like the fact that the collectors edition comes with the soundtrack cause if this is the demo music I cant wait to see whats in store from Mr. Mansell.

Replayed the demo taking the things I learned into consideration. Enjoyed it much more this time. Camera still bugs me but I'll adjust I suppose. You seem to level up really fast. Gained like 2 levels just in that short section. Hopefully carrying only two weapons will drastically shorten the biotic power recharge times.

I'm guessing no but I'll ask anyway....can the demo allow you to import your ME2 dude?

@Vinny_Says: Nope.

you don't tell a femshep that she is getting soft around the edges.... rude

@Encephalon said:

• Also, a lot of Shepard just saying stuff without me choosing it. I'm all for this. Making the player choose every line, even the most insignificant ones, just highlighted the hollowness of the whole system. I'm okay with fewer actual choices if scenes are more fluid as a result.

Gotta disagree with you there. I'd hate when that used to happen in 2. Oh well guess I gotta deal with it.

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

Everyone complaining about graphics and animation: it's an old build, wait and see on that stuff. (this isn't a "oh my god don't bash my Mass Effect waaaah" comment, just mentioning the fact that this appears to be the E3 demo, and E3 was quite a while ago.)

Very true. Its probably atleast 2 months old (has to go through certification for microsoft and sony well in advance) and polish is always the last step in game development. BF3 had a lot of problems in the beta that werent in the final release, and that came out a month before release.

@Sooty BF3 was also a beta, not a demo :/

finally played it and... its ME2 all right. no complains there. The tingle at the title screen akin to ME1 was a great touch.
 
For some strange reason i am looking forward to play the MP in this. The core shooting have been improved to make it.. workable.. in MP situation.

@david3cm said:

The demo didn't leave a great taste in my mouth. I enjoyed the shooting and the new level up system seems pretty neat, but I wasn't a fan of how melodramatic the intro felt, seemed like they ran a few things by Michael Bay during the development process. But I am still hopeful for the final product, I realize that having a demo that takes place on the Normady and consists of you going through dialogue trees for an hour isn't a great promotional move, but it is what I would have liked in a demo.

When it's giant machines from outer space invading the Earth with the aim to kill everyone and you're the only person who can stop them I think an explosive Michael Bay intro is the perfect way to do this.

Got a code through ExpertZone.

To be perfectly honest, its not earth shattering. It's very much an evolution of what we've seen already in ME2. Somehow, and I don't know if this is just because I'm thinking back to ME2 with rose tinted glasses, it didn't look as good as it's predecessor. I hope thats just an error on my part. It felt a lot heavier, movement more awkward than I remember in 2.

And the camera annoyed me, it feels to close to the character model, I never felt comfortable with it.

But hopefully that'll improve with the retail release - regardless, I'm a day one buyer.

Got a code through ExpertZone.

To be perfectly honest, its not earth shattering. It's very much an evolution of what we've seen already in ME2. Somehow, and I don't know if this is just because I'm thinking back to ME2 with rose tinted glasses, it didn't look as good as it's predecessor. I hope thats just an error on my part. It felt a lot heavier, movement more awkward than I remember in 2.

And the camera annoyed me, it feels to close to the character model, I never felt comfortable with it.

But hopefully that'll improve with the retail release - regardless, I'm a day one buyer.

The demo is cool and all but it means nothing to me because Wrex ain't supposed to be there, he dead! I understand that doint a demo with your custom shepard is extremely hard but it would have been much better at wetting your appetite for ME3 and would have brought on a lot more discussion around the interwebs.

Well this looks like a ME game...I guess that's good

They have said on Twitter that the dialogue options seen in the demo will be expanded in the full game, which is nice.

https://twitter.com/#!/masseffect/status/169146460334596096

is it the Mordin voice from ME2? or a new voice?

@Sooty said:

@Chindie said:

Got a code through ExpertZone.

To be perfectly honest, its not earth shattering. It's very much an evolution of what we've seen already in ME2. Somehow, and I don't know if this is just because I'm thinking back to ME2 with rose tinted glasses, it didn't look as good as it's predecessor. I hope thats just an error on my part. It felt a lot heavier, movement more awkward than I remember in 2.

And the camera annoyed me, it feels to close to the character model, I never felt comfortable with it.

But hopefully that'll improve with the retail release - regardless, I'm a day one buyer.

You're not alone, it definitely looks worse than 2.

The second level looks fine...but that first one...man that looks rough.

@WilltheMagicAsian said:

Yeah and the rifle spread is super tight, I don't remember it being that accurate in past games. I can go full auto and it's super easy to control the recoil, even on a gamepad. Also, there being no good full beards in this game is a major disappointment.

It depended on the rifle.

The athmosphere was awesome, I liked the new, more fluid conversations, voice acting was good for the most part (The defence council... Good thing they didn't live for longer than 2 minutes), music was really good especially the ending song on the earth, some animations were dated and admiral Anderson's running animation looked f*cking hilarious.

But what the h*ll, why can't Shepard crouch? I died 3 or 4 times because the commander would just stand he's head up while turrets were shooting at him!

@Evilmetal: I think it's been said he has a new voice actor... sounded the same, or at least I thought it sounded like mordin and fit mordin perfectly etc. I've played me2 a bunch, as have many others, so I don't think it's a case of me just not having exposure to me2 mordin for a while etc