For those of you that were planning on buying Left 4 Dead 2, Valve wants to give you a chance to try the game a little earlier. Gamers that pre-order the zombie-killing sequel will receive early access to the game’s demo. Valve didn’t share any details on when such a demo would be available, but with the game hitting store shelves sometime in November, we think it’s a safe bet that it’ll be sometime before that. The demo will be available for both Steam and Xbox 360 pre-orders.
Now is it just me or is offering a demo as a pre-order reward a little redundant? When someone pre-orders a game it’s usually because they’re confident that they’ll want to play it and want to do so the moment the game is released. Futhermore, while it may let impatient people play the game sooner, if the game isn’t good (which we here at GameNorth HQ doubt), or not enough of a departure from the original, couldn’t this pre-order reward actually result in the cancellation of said pre-order?
Richard Mitchell is a video game addict living in Toronto. He has been gaming for more than two decades, and despite multiple interventions, continues to game today. He has an Xbox 360, a PS3, a Wii, a Nintendo DS, a gaming PC, and a life, and does his best to juggle them all. 
This really is a bit of a pet peeve for me. Nowadays beta keys and demos have become a privilege, instead of marketing tools to get people to buy your game. Aion has a pre-order bonus of a beta key. Wow, so I get to pre-order your game AND test it for you? Thanks.
Give me a golden lancer, thanks.
I hate pre-orders.
I hate demos.
I hate November.
I’m really going to miss Francis in L4D2.