So, dear ME3MPers, anyone played that ANTHEM demo and wanna report ?

It's a thumbs-down from me unfortunately.

I'm loving it so far. It's like a Mass Effect meets Warframe in Skyrim in space! The environments are gorgeous, voice acting is good, the hidden premise (lore) managed to peek my curiosity, and combat is smooth and fun.

I had some issues getting into freeplay. Before playing with Alfonsedode I couldn't get in at all. The matchmaking thing would kick me out to the main menu after much loading with different messages about connection errors.

The one thing I dislike intensely is the slap-you-in-the-face teleport mechanic when on a non-freeplay expedition. Namely, if other people in your group run ahead of you (which is what pugs do by definition) and trigger a new stage of the mission, the game will rudely teleport you to the area where the others are. So no sight-seeing while on a mission! God forbid you try pick up resources and shit or kill something the others weren't interested in. Very condescending and annoying, and pretty much the only reason why I won't preorder the game right away.

Instead I'll play it for a month or two with the origin prime thing to see if it'll hook me. But yeah: definitely playing it.

Hm. If you mean the voice of your Freelancer - you sure do. Can't remember if I heard it in freeplay, but in quest-missions she talks to the quest-giver plenty.

+1, the last game I pre-ordered was Dark Souls 3, so that's what March 2016? There are very very few game devs I trust as much as FromSoft.

So, my last post regardig Anthem: You know that feeling when you start up a new game and the time just flies up, yet you don't want to put it down..? Yeah, I didn't get that. It was such a joyless, by-the-number gameplay with extra portion of bugs in a gorgeous, but ultimately hollow world.

If it launches in current state (which it probably will, given the EA urge to push it in financial Q1), the reviewers and especially angry Metacritic mob won't be forgiving. Now factor all the behemoth competition it's going against - Division 2, Metro Exodus, Crackdown 3 - and I start to have a bad feeling about sales. Well, we'll see in two weeks anyway.

Okay, I'll add my 2 cents now as well. Probably won't cover everything I've experienced in the few sessions I could squeeze into my busy schedule of this last weekend. I won't be buying this game. That doesn't necessarily mean that I think it is bad. I just don't have much time and overall the demo wasn't convincing enough for me to keep playing. As mylkoo already pointed out there was no "man, I really can't stop playing" feeling for me either.

Aside from the lack of overwhelming joy when playing I think they did some things right and some not at all. When it came to combat it never felt satisfying (like when you pop some heads in ME3MP). It definitely feels more like MEAMP. And that's not a good thing. Some enemies seem to instantly die from just looking at them angrily while others are huge bullet-sponges that recharge their shields quicker than you can take them down alone. I never really looked at them at all, they were all just some "red points" on the map and radar that needed to go away. Usually combat was just a big mess of trying to not get constantly hit from somewhere and trying to get rid of the annoyances as quickly as possible. While I liked a lot of the world it's just not so great for combat in my opinion. Of course we only caught a glimpse of it due to the limited amount of weapons and gear. The guns never really felt great and the one weapon that was kind of nice (Devastator Sniper Rifle) only came with 4 or 5 rounds. Meaning it was basically useless because I was constantly out of ammo. Basically weapons were not much fun, they lack impact in terms how they feel, sound and handle. Again... this was just a demo so there could be awesome stuff in the full game. But judging from my experience with MEAMP I doubt it will get any better.

I don't know how much you can customize the Javelins in the full game and make them unique in terms of gameplay. But I have to say: 4 Javelins is just not enough in my opinion. Yes, Warframe also didn't start out with a gazillion of Warframes and stuff but I still think 4 Javelins is not enough no matter how much you can customize the loadout. Because not every Javelin can equip every available piece. I started with the Ranger and liked some things - then I switched to the Interceptor which was much more my cup of tea in terms of speed and agility. But while I was looking to play it as a fast moving sniper build that can switch between spots fast Bioware apparently wants this kit to be melee-focussed. And I don't think you can switch your Ultimate so you are stuck with whatever the particular kit comes along. While this is okay if you have a wide variety of Javelins to choose from it is not okay if the Interceptor is the only fast and agile kit but you don't want a melee-based Ultimate because you intend to move around the outer edges of the combat zone and shoot enemies with a sniper rifle (that barely has any ammo). So we would either need way more Javelins per "class" or be able to switch everything including ultimates.

Some other negative points:
- The UI is still horrible at times. Not as horrible as MEAMP but still bad. As if the designers slowly come off their drugs they apparently were on when they designed the MEA UI but still aren't fully sober. There are just things that make no sense (like using U and Z for navigating through tabs instead of automatically mapping left and right to the buttons you assigned for moving left and right with the Javelin). Or having to go through 2 or 3 steps before you can quit the game. In a dialogue you all of a sudden have to use 1 and 2 to answer. Ingame I also felt like they could have done a better job with some stuff (like cooldowns for example).
- My ALT-key could not be assigned. It apparently serves no ingame function and it is probably just a bug. Because I use this key a lot (for melee in ME3MP) and you have quite a few functions you need keys for this was really bad.
- The loading times are too long. Especially if you can't jump into the game right away but have to load to get Fort Tarsis, then walk around (can't even sprint), load again to customize your Javelin, load again for gameplay... I can only imagine how horrible loading must be on consoles. I had the demo installed on my system/games SSD by the way. They are not the worst, they just aren't good enough in my opinion.
- Overall the game doesn't feel well optimized. I didn't expect the game to run at constant 60fps @ 3440x1440 on ultra settings of course on my GTX 1080 but even after I adjusted the settings there were times the game ran well and then had big fps drops (and not even for obvious reasons). I think they still can't really properly work with the engine. It doesn't run poorly, just not as good and stable as I think it should and probably could (taking a look at Battlefield here for comparison).
- Fort Tarsis was such a chore. After 2 missions I already hated going back there. I could not run and I did not care for what was going on there at all. Personally I think it is a big mistake of having such a hub and it not atually being a hub (where you can meet your friends). It's just for the story and I think it will get boring and annoying quickly in the full game.
- We didn't get much story obviously. But what was there did not interest me the slightest. I have played several missions a couple of times and still don't even know (or care) what we were actually doing. Might be different in the full game but don't expect some Mass Effect depth there. 
- Flying around is awesome although the controls could be a bit better. But I fiddled around with some settings and it got better. I was still crashing into walls from time to time. Overall I have to say this is probably the best and most fun part of the game. Swimming controls were totally fucked up for me and I could not get them working properly for some reason.

This post will probably be conceived as very negative. But I was mainly pointing out some flaws that bugged me the most. I still think it will be a better game than that piece of shit MEA. But it is closer to MEAMP than ME3MP for sure and in the end it's just a loot shooter that can be very hectic at times and leave you with a "wtf is going on right now and what do I have to do" expression every now and then. I can see people getting some value out of it and having fun. Personally I had the most fun just moving around the world, not so much with all the other stuff.

The comparison to Skyrim was helpful, Smehur

No way, José!

I think i have to insist here, Flying is fantastic !
Ok it s not a instant L2use, but clearly well designed at first sight.

U guys are used to fly in suits in other games ? just jumping and hit the throttle is really something. Clearly enough for me to be forgiving about the shooter part (which doesn t look stupid either). And the whole battle dynamics induced by that 3D liberty is still to learn in my case.
I did nt play andromeda nor looked at many gameplay videos, jetpacks were coming close to flying here ?

As a matter of interest, Alfonsedode, what are your laptop's specs? I ask because I'm wondering if mine might manage to chug through Anthem.

Jetpacks are a cool addition. Jumping became so natural, that I wanted to do so even in the hubs, where no jetpacks are equipped. Doesn't come close to flying though...

i have no idea how big the MEA fail was sales wise.

I m also far from having any experience/reference about that, so even if i feel the game can find a large audience (and be a success), elaborated echoes here and there are not very positive, but maybe it s the norm. Or maybe it s just specific to EA/Bioware being bashed.