Not really...the content of reviews are far more indicative of the totality of a product. I mean, theres a ton of reasons why demos are tough. First of all, you need to both tutorialize the player and show them the interesting things in the game to get them hooked. That is a pretty big challenge in games with a learning curve or games that do much of anything out of the ordinary. Then you have story based games, which don't want to spoil anything and have difficulty getting the players to care about the world and characters in a short time frame.

Then you have the fact that the demo is an incredibly small portion of the game. Whether that portion is good or bad may not be indicative of the full product and the full product may be less/more than the sum of its parts.

Honestly, its not hard to figure out the things that I will like by reading reviews or listening to the opinions of others...

Demos just aren't worth the time, effort and money that studios have to put into them and they present a lot of design challenges which aren't a problem in full games.

The point is that demos are not inherently good, either for the developer or the consumer. And apparently the free market decided that they are definitely not good for the majority of developers.

Each developer has to decide for themselves if a demo works for them.

The concept of demos isn't gone though. It just evolved into alphas, betas and F2P.

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage demo was the best. I loved those demo CD's. Anyone ever play Tiny Tank: Up Your Arsenal demo? I couldn't beat that one as a kid but I loved it haha.

A demo is only what the developer wants you to see. If that reflects the final gameplay is completely up to them. There is no more trust involved in a demo than in a trailer.

Reviews are an arbitrary mainstay. Demos give hands on experience no matter which way you slice it. At E3 and other gaming shows the dollars are put forth by devs and publishers to show those lucky enough to play them. Gamers at home should have such access during even the major months of the year when the shows happen. 

Yes...a demo is supposed to a small part of the game. Its a demonstration. Its supposed to whet your palette for the full experience and be the best showcase of the parts of the basics of said game. 

In the end all of these preliminary previews, reviews and demos should benefit and influence the customer. If people who make it into expos can get the experience, why shouldn't the average joe at home? The previews that we get from a lot of the expo the gaming commentary providers we tend to trust come from 15-30 minute demos at these shows. So....is it alright that they get the demos but we dont? 

Yeah, I would never have heard of Bushido Blade or Tomba if it had not been for Jampacked on Playstation. I would remember playing some demos multiple times. Jet Moto was so awesome!

A trailer is also what the developer wants you to see.  A trailer can trump a demo just like a trailer can be a draw for a movie that sucks. Be my guest. Check Youtube and you'll find that there are quite a few deceptively good trailers for movies that were not half as good as the trailers themselves.

My point is twofold:

1. A short demo is not representative of the whole product
2. Games are not created with demos in mind, and often times the design of a full game doesn't work when condensed into a demo.

As for the trade show bit, thats a different point although interesting. I think that it would be cool if we were able to play those demos (I don't want to call them demos, but there really is no better word), however that is under the pretense that the game is an unfinished product. However, I don't think this is a right we are at all entitled to.

A demo can be a draw for a game that sucks.

Just gonna paste my definitive statement about this again.

The point is that demos are not inherently good, neither for the developer nor the consumer. And apparently the free market decided that they are definitely not good for the majority of developers. Each developer has to decide for themselves if a demo works for them.

The concept of demos isn't gone though. It just evolved into alphas, betas and F2P. Things you didn't have in the demo era.

Definitely. I had access to games I would never have had access. to otherwise. In the 90's it was even harder to get your games as a child without some sort of televised commercialism. You had Gamepro and EGM and some others. I liked British magazines because they were more in depth and better for my development of words and sentencing as a child.