Discuss your feelings on the demo here.

So far I'm loving it. I started by jumping into HUT because thats the mode I was most interested in. I'm unaware if what is given in the demo is random or preset. However as a habs fan it felt very bias given the fact that my logo was the bruins logo and my home jersey the maple leafs. Besides those to less then awesome cards the rest of my cards were pretty sweet. I felt like I had good mix of NHL stars and CHL stars along with some Europe talent sprinkled in. I found myself for the next 12-15 minutes salivating at the cards and stats while I built my team. 

Some of my Noteable players
NHL

Ryan Getzlaf
Zendo Chara
Nicklas Backstrom
Thomas Volkun

CHL

Kyle Alzner
Brendan Schenn
Cody Hodgson
Nazem Kadri

So after getting the team and chemistry just they way I wanted I hit the ice. Then let out a big sigh... when the first thing I see is presented by HONDA but that quickly went away when I saw the new Intro( fuck finally). The next thing I saw was also awesome they re did all the overlays to more TV realistic. Also the Ice even from the opening face-off is much improved. So I finally get into the game play and notice the skating feels a little different,for now I'll say for the better. Soon after i witness my first real time physics hit and it was awesome. I plowed so poor soul with Chara and it looked like poetry in motion.  He fell to ice dropped is stick as he went to go pick it up the stick got knocked away one more time before he actually got to the stick and picked it with an animation.(no Jedi light saber pull :) ). 

The hitting is not the only cool thing in NHL 11.I also have to say the shooting feels faster and gives you a good sense of feedback (think how good FPS lets you feel the gun your shooting). I scored my first goal on just a normal shot coming down the wing. Now those familiar with NHL 10 will see this as a good thing. No more feeling like you have to cheat the goalie A.I. to score. Not that I'm saying scoring is easy because that was the only time i scored rushing down the wing. However I also scored a beauty of wrister coming out from the corner. Which brings me to another new feature goal celebrations. Its alright but its no where close to  the FIFA series yet. I find they do not given you enough time after you score to press any of the buttons. Most of time I scored tried to decided which button I was going to do and bang to late he just went into a pre-canned celebration. I adjusted to as time went so I guess its not that big of a deal on positive note the celebration doesn't last very long. So no worries about jerks online in EASHL . So i went through the tourney losing to team Canada in the finals. Which had the actual team Canada roster so I was pretty screwed. Overall I really enjoyed my time with HUT and look to give it more attention in th full game.

After the time HUT I decided to move on to the Battle for the Cup mode. Since HUT doesn't save after you leave I'll probably spend my time here. Not much more to add from the above but something awesome and heart breaking happened in this game.I chose the Hawks and was 5-4 in the third with like 1 minute left. I accidentally high sticked someone and got a penalty. I was stoked to see they finally changed the goddamn animation.( thats right no more camera whacking) However that feeling quickly changed to pissed as Philly scored to tie it. So were off to over time i come over the blue line let a slapper go it bounces into the air off a defender skate and Hossa tips it in with a bat in. The spotlight goes on I do my celebration and  the crowd goes nuts. All of sudden the ref skates in and waves it off. The play goes for a review and is determined a high stick. a few minutes latter  Philly scores to win the cup. I can't say I was mad  i found it awesome that goal reviews were in.

 final thoughts:NHL 11 has no made NHL 10 obsolete.

" @Hockeymask27: Is the demo availible on XBLA "

im downloading it now... i never bothered with last years, but i really want to play this one.

Downloading it now, but won't be playing it until later. I skipped out on last years because I burned myself out with the 09 version. I'm hoping that this will get me excited for it again.

" im downloading it now... i never bothered with last years, but i really want to play this one. "

" Downloading it now, but won't be playing it until later. I skipped out on last years because I burned myself out with the 09 version. I'm hoping that this will get me excited for it again. "

stuck at work, but wondering; what are the menus like this year?  I hate the highlight cursor and the way it fades in and out, when I'm trying to sort through rosters and pay careful attention to numbers, the slow fade from intense white to low gray would make my eyes hurt after a while.

" stuck at work, but wondering; what are the menus like this year?  I hate the highlight cursor and the way it fades in and out, when I'm trying to sort through rosters and pay careful attention to numbers, the slow fade from intense white to low gray would make my eyes hurt after a while. "

Hope this answers your question.

" stuck at work, but wondering; what are the menus like this year?  I hate the highlight cursor and the way it fades in and out, when I'm trying to sort through rosters and pay careful attention to numbers, the slow fade from intense white to low gray would make my eyes hurt after a while. "

I haven't played an NHL game in a while and here are a couple of gripes I've been having: 
 

• The tutorial is not very helpful. I didn't feel adequately taught how to play defense or do board play. 
• The game feels to slow. This is supposed to be the fastest game on Earth.
• Controls in general just feel really unresponsive. Everytime I try to set up a perfect one-timer, the player receiving the puck just lets it go right by him. Defense I try to poke check and hit and sometimes it will work and sometimes it just won't and I never really get the impression of what I'm doing right or wrong. The controls just feel janky for some reason.

" @Hockeymask27: Something I just noticed that is really bad in this game, try a hip check. It's way too effective. (you do this by clicking in right stick).  "

" @Hockeymask27: Something I just noticed that is really bad in this game, try a hip check. It's way too effective. (you do this by clicking in right stick).  "

" I haven't played an NHL game in a while and here are a couple of gripes I've been having: 
 

• The tutorial is not very helpful. I didn't feel adequately taught how to play defense or do board play. 
• The game feels to slow. This is supposed to be the fastest game on Earth.
• Controls in general just feel really unresponsive. Everytime I try to set up a perfect one-timer, the player receiving the puck just lets it go right by him. Defense I try to poke check and hit and sometimes it will work and sometimes it just won't and I never really get the impression of what I'm doing right or wrong. The controls just feel janky for some reason.

 
Still, if there's somebody who wants to help me out or tell me if there is something I am doing wrong, I would more than gladly accept your help. =) 
"

• 
  this year's game looks real good to me. I have decided a couple of years ago to buy HL every other year because getting it each time gets to cost a lost of money, knowing the game is worth othig once the new one is out. I skipped NHL10 ad I'm glad NHL 11 looks great...

throughly enjoyed it, im still playing it too, love all the new animations, hip checks for the WIN

I played Battle for the Cup for two periods and I didn't really like the passing style or the movement. That being said, I hated the NHL 10 demo but now I play it every day so I'm sure I'll like NHL 11 fine when it comes out.

Im downloading the Joe danger, NHL 11, and HAWX 2 demos now. This will take a WHILE.

" @one_2nd:   does it not have an animation associated with it?  i would click the left stick and it seemed like it made me go a little faster, but i wasn't sure because it didn't look any different, really. "

Downloading right now. The last one I really played was 2008.

I haven't played the ultimate team mode but I played the Game 7 of the cup thing a couple times. I really love the new faceoff mechanics, it makes the faceoff circle much more exciting. The little things in the background haven't changed much, and that's a bit disappointing. I like how the crowd actually cheers when a big hit is made and when the announcer calls out the goal scorer, but the actual crowd still looks janky, except now instead of wearing 4 different shirts for the entire audience they are down to 3 shirts and a home jersey. It really takes you out of the experience when you're watching a replay and a few dudes in the crowd jump up when, in reality, no one in the stands would react that way to whatever the play was. 
 
Another thing is the commentating. WHY CAN'T YOU LEARN FROM FIFA?!?!??!?! The announcers are absolutely terrible, as they usually are. They also don't react to the play properly. I was up 4-2 with a minute left and Philly pulled Leighton. I broke into the zone alone and unfortunately hit the bar. The commentator proceded to tell me that I had the keeper beat but just couldn't get it past the iron. I guess that considering the keeper was on the bench I technically did have him beat, but it's also a bit of a let down to hear those kind of things still happen.  
 
None of that actually affects the gameplay, so it's all minor complaints, but still stuff I would hope to see fixed by the 20th year the NHL series has existed. As far as the game, it was a lot of fun, and the hitting along the boards is A LOT more satisfying, but I always struggle with that camera angle since I usually only play Be A Pro mode. Graphically it looked better than the other games, and it's nice to see the goalies finally get some more believable animations. Finally, it's still way too easy to skate up the wing past the AI, throw it in front across the net, and score almost every time. I didn't bother with difficulty settings in the demo, so maybe it's better in higher difficulties.  
 
I'm going to play through all the tutorials (only did the faceoff one) and check out the other mode, but I lent a friend NHL 10 shortly after it came out and just lost contact, so I've been playing NHL 09 for the past two years. I'm ready for a new hockey game, and it sure as shit isn't going to be the God awful NHL 2K series. 

Buying this game day 1. Ever since I heard that I can play with the Kamloops Blazers (one of the greatest WHL teams ever) I have been sold on NHL 11. Now I understand why americans buy NCAA titles.

Nothing new enough for me to go out and buy it again. 
 
Skipped out on 10, Skipping 11.

Been fooling around with authentic puck size. It's pretty neat and allows even more goal variety. I wont be using it to long because it will give me bad playing habits for online. Anyone else like it?

I was a little miffed with the demo at first but then I realized that there going for more of a sim then and arcade game in this one. Also the hipchecks OH THE HIPCHECKS

noticed today that there's a new PA announcer.  i think i like the new one.  sounds more like a real-life announcer and less like the standard video game PA announcer for the past 10+ years. 
 
it's such a generous demo, really.  being able to play through HUT over and over is a lot of fun.  i got my 50th ranked win in NHL 10 online versus (50-24, kthx) on monday in anticipation of never playing it again once the 11 demo came out.  i don't think i was wrong.

 I'm impressed with what I've played of the demo, the gameplay refinements are welcome and it definitely feels a lot less stiff then NHL 10 did. The Ultimate Team mode is a really neat addition, the trading card system is well thought out and the line chemistry is fun to mess around with. I'm a little dissapointed that the commentators weren't replaced for this game, hearing Gary Thorne and Bill Clement is starting to get a little old, they do the same thing every year. Otherwise I'm really looking forward to this game, I'm going to be spending a lot of time playing it.

All of the NHL 10 glitches are back, some of the NHL 09 glitches are back, and there are several new ones i've found. I hope they do something about this. 

" @DevWil: mmk, curve shot's back, every glitch from 10 (try anyone of them, it should work), and lastly if your stick is toward the boards and you skate down the wing, wide of the goaltender and take a slapshot top corner it works every single time. There is also another one I found off of a certain faceoff, but that'd be way too complex to explain. If you don't believe me I'll post a video for you. Also I should add it's in battle for the cup mode, I'm using the blackhawks, and playing on superstar difficulty. Do I really have any reason to lie about this? lol "

I wasn't really fond of the passing mechanics at first, because I was accustomed to a quick press resulting in a tape-to-tape. Now that I've got the timing and rhythm of it down, though, I really like it. The options that it opens up with drop passes and the like makes it that much easier for me to apply my intuitive hockey knowledge from playing in real life to situations in the game. Definitely anticipating this one, though I probably won't buy it at launch because Halo: Reach is out the following week and I don't want to drop that much money on games in such a short time. Hopefully Amazon will have it on sale near the holidays like they did with 10 last year, so I can pick it up then.

there is a roster & tuner set available already, i got it when I turned the game on for the first time.