This whole fiasco screams ineptitude of the highest order. For Beta testing purposes what is offered is nothing less then laughable. Which raises the question of whether it is a genuine Beta, or a poorly conceived free trial. In regards to both it is a terrible failure. As a Beta it is poorly conceived, implemented, and unforgivably unstable. The reality is that Beta testing is supposed to serve a purpose, and I am somewhat disappointed by the fact that some do not seem to understand this.

A Beta should be based upon the most recent build. Not a previous build that has probably already been heavily modified. The purpose of the testing is to find problems to be fixed. Not to highlight problems that have already been identified and supposedly remedied. The testing should also include on the fly patching. So that the testers can at least verify that identified problems have been remedied. So that they can then turn their attention to the next set of problems to be identified. Beta testing is not supposed to be a free trial. It is supposed to be a process between the developers and the players.

Frankly if your argument is that this Beta was a old build. Then you should be outraged at the sheer disrespect you have been shown. Your time is valuable, and there is no point offering your services as a tester if your input is not going to be used to constructive purposes. You should demand a patch. They asked for your time, and not only do they owe you for the time you have given, but they owe it to themselves to use that time productively. You were not given a free game. You were asked to be a contributing force in the development cycle. You are the guy doing them a favor.

Personally I found the whole thing offensive. I could not properly test the product which is what I signed on for. I did not even get to have a marginally good game play experience. All told I got nothing for my time, and effort other then frustration and confusion. Anyone cancelling reservations for this game is entirely of a right to do so. If what you were exposed to wasn't cause enough to change your mind. Then the disrespect shown to you would qualify as a pride obliterating bitch slap.

I think I will take my very low opinion of this game thank you. Either it is as crappy as this whatever the hell it is has lead me to believe, or I was raped hardcore. In either event I am not amused. They can take their game, and shove it right up their asses. I hope everyone walks away with the same low opinion. If you want to Beta do it the right way, and if you want to hand out free trials. Once again do it the right way. Do not give me something I can not test, or I cannot play. In either event you lost me. Oh by the way I have enjoyed the series in the past.

The Beta is not that bad, yea it has its problems (falling through the map, one shot deaths, some of the kill cams are off, party problems) others have done worse and they made you pay 60 bucks to find out. I think the game still delivers, I really couldn't get all that into bfbc2 but i am loving this game. I know it might not be that great of a beta compared to others but i don't blame the game or dice. I blame ea. All games have problems at the start and they are saying the full product wont have these issues. If they are lying about that atleast they know about the issues and have time to fix them before it launches.

For those that canceled preorders. If you played the beta and you didn't like how the game played i completely understand its not for everybody. But if your going to sit there and say you canceled it because of the bugs (which were not all that bad imo) to go for mw3 you've got to be kidding me.

Call of duty over the years has just been getting worse and worse. Cod4 had many out of the maps problems/connection issues ( i don't know about the problems when it launched, i didn't buy it until it was out for a year) . MW2 was horrible, countless glitches (care package glitch, airdrop glitch, killstreak glitchs), getting under the maps, very unbalanced (remember 1 man army?), connection problems, you couldn't even party up with friends. BLK OPS is still has issues, problems with connection (some of the worst hit markers and lag ever in cod), killstreaks will not let you control them or go under the map, the game has the worst time loading up half the time it will just freeze or when the map is supposed to load it will make the screen black freezing my ps3 (i have tried it on 3 different ps3s also so its not like its my system), worst spawn system i have ever seen.I am no longer getting cod i will be getting bf3 instead, atleast they are trying to give me a better experience as opposed to just repackaging the same game.

In a world where platform holders have a month long submission proccess for content that is put up on PSN or XBLA there is just no way you can use the latest build for a beta. Then you have to remember it had to be ready for the closed beta you had to have because EA promised it to MoH players, and you get an old build it's not dices fault really.

And I regect your betas have to be polished argument because BF3 beta players are not doing the dev a favor. The alpha test on PC was the real beta where the developer actually wanted feedback. This round is just stress testing servers under load which could have been done in another closed beta. There is only a open beta because people demanded it, if you followed any of the dice devs on twitter you would know they were constantly asked when they would be releasing the beta, people are not playing it do the developers a favor, because gamers today have been tought think of a beta as a multiplayer demo. 

EA made the mistake of trying to use a beta as an advertising tool like everyone else and that has backfired because the game just wasn't ready, but the decision to have a beta was announced months ago and people would have been pissed if it wasn't deliverd, hell some were pissed that the alpha test wasn't open. Dice held it back as long as they could but as EA want to beat MW3 to market it had to be now. Maybe Dice can work a mirical and get the game into a polished state in time but I have a feeling they should have delayed the game until next year.

People will do that.  They hate a top dog for its flaws and why it is popular, so any challenge comes along with be rooted for and hyped up and spun.  This happened with NFL Gameday for the Playstation 1 (individuals back in the day ended up hyping it up over Madden) and others now.  You had individuals who disliked Halo for a number of reasons jump all over Killzone (and Killzone 2) predicting Halo-killer stuff with the franchise.

The beta is dissapointing. Though I think it will end up better. The only other beta I've been apart of was Final Fantasy XIV and it was dissapointing and we know how that turned out.

Maybe I shouldn't do beta's because I curse the game.

If this is indeed old code, they shouldn't use the beta as a marketing tool, which in this case, it seemed to be used.

I did my holiday gaming preorders last weeked as stores were having massive discounts.

Forza 4, Halo Anniversary, Sonic Generations, Kinect Sports 2, Uncharted 3.

Was thinking about battlefield but then I played the beta. Err...no thanks. Not cause its a broken game or anything. To me this plays just like modern warfare which I can't stand anymore.

You know glitches and bugs in a beta are understandable........but when you don't fix any of those issues for those that are playing the beta......there's the problem. Yes, they said the glitches in the beta are fixed in the retail game....but what about the beta? There's millions still playing a horrible beta. Why hasn't it been patched? Is DICE too lazy to do something that simple?

If it played like Modern Warfare and had that amazing engine I'd pre-order it in an instant. 

But it doesn't. 

Maybe if your comfort zone is with Modern Warfare and you are exclusively in to that franchise...you may be able to spot the minor differences.

But as a gamer who casually plays all kinds of games and types of shooter, to me these 2 are the same shit.

@Zarx

You made a lot of excuses, but you made no real argument. You can shift the blame to Electronic Arts if you like, but I know
for a fact that Betas can be done on consoles, and they can be done well. You can have a reasonable level of polish, and you can get something accomplished. Others have managed to do this in the past. The reality is this a late stage Beta should have a great deal of polish, and it should be a good tool for balance testing. This was simply neither, and it shouldn't matter whether the build is two weeks old or three months old.

This rush to launch the game is obviously coming at the expense of quality, and that kind of thinking is why players were given a grotesque Beta. One that was neither polished, or a fundamentally good tool for testing. Your argument for some strange sense of entitlement ignores a fundamental truth. The deadlines are self imposed, and entirely arbitrary. They aren't being forced into releasing a game at a time they do not want. They are the ones who decided upon their own time table. So they have all the time in the world to do it right.

I do not need to read twitter to know when something is wrong. They can belly ache about how hard their jobs are, and you know what that isn't my damned problem. I am not going to feel sorry for them. They decided to have a shitty public Beta, and you cannot argue that they shouldn't be judged on the merit of what they showed. Why should anyone expect greatness from a game when the Beta a month prior to launch was incredibly bug ridden, and had glaring omissions.

This should have been a positive and productive experience. Instead it was exactly the opposite, and nobody was forced into doing this. They did this to themselves, and in doing so created a stigma among players. If they do not like that then they can delay the game, and run a better public Beta to show that they are in fact serious about producing a quality game.