So when I preordered Saint's Row yesterday, they gave me a neat little demo disc.  I guess the downloadable version of it won't be available until next week or something.  Anyways, since I'm quite looking forward to the game, I popped it in and played around for it.

First off, it certainly confirmed for me that this is going to be a serious contender for game of the year for me.  The city seems nicely done, maybe a little soulless compared to the style of the GTA games, but still very nicely done overall.  Meanwhile the combat mechanics are excellent, and even in the demo the variety of activities involved was quite nice. 

But I quickly reached the point, even before I'd gone through the demo content, where I just had to stop playing.  Not because the game was bad, because it was good -- good enough I'm certainly I'm going to dig into it completely when the game is out in a few weeks.  I don't want to spend time on a demo character I can't save when I'm just going to replay all that content soon enough anyways.  With a game backlog that is huge and getting larger by the week, I just don't have the time to really explore a demo when the real game is just on the horizon.

Of course, one advantage of demos is filtering out bad games -- but I've often found that demos, despite their intent, aren't very indicative of the final game.  Apparently the Hitman: Blood Money demo, for example, is the first level of the game.  But that level is really just an extended tutorial, and exemplifies none of the non-linearity and intricate timing / complexity of the actual levels in the game. Were I to have only played that demo, I might have missed out on one of my favorite gaming experiences so far this year.

Demos certainly have their place.  In fact, I think with the advent of Marketplace downloadable demos, major games without a demo are going to be seen like movies that aren't released for advance reviews, as if they have something to hide.  For buyers who are making very limited purchase choices, I think they are a key element and a good demo can serve as fantastic PR.  But for me, more often than not I'm just better off waiting.