To be honest, there was some aspects of the demo that were familiar to us because we basically played the same levels back in June when Valve debuted Left 4 Dead 2 at E3. It's still weird to have the game's Parish campaign in a daylight setting just because the creepiness factor is cut down because there's a lot of sun. However the new Infected bosses and the new uncommon common infected made up for some of that.

The uncommon common in the Parish campaign (a zombie that doesn't have special abilities per se but is still different than the normal mindless undead) is a security guard who wears a helmet with a see-through visor and a flack jacket. Even though he has no "powers" he's extremely tough to kill because of his helmet and suit. Moving around and shooting him in the back is the best way to handle him.

The new special Infected bosses make an appearance in the demo and all have their attractions. We love the gimpy Jockey running towards you to try to jump on your back. The Charger, while not as devastating as the Tank, can still do some heavy damage to your player with both his charge attack and his secondary pile driver move with his infected and massive right arm. It's the zombie as WWE wrestler. Our favorite new boss has to the the Spitter who not only fires out some deadly toxins from her mouth that have quite a range but because she is dead sexy. (OK, we don't think that's true . . .most of the time).
There are plenty of new firearms in the demo, from the new Magnum pistol that's much more potent than your normal default pistol to the Combat shotgun to the silenced machine pistol. The new bile grenade is helpful; its basically the same thing as having the pipe bomb with the attacked smoke alarm to attract zombies in one place. Easy pickings for the foursome.

We really, really love the goofy new melee weapons; from the police baton to the guitar to the frying pan (which has a nice metal sound when you use it on a zombie) they will likely be huge favorites of a lot of Left 4 Dead players. Our favorite was the machete which we would have liked to have used all the time to chop off zombie heads. If you want to try out a few of t he item that are not automatically available in the demo, this post on the Steam community site will tell you how to activate things like the explosive and incendiary ammo and the new grenade launcher.

We didn't expect much in terms of graphical improvements but the Source engine, combined with some talented artists handling the character models and level artwork, make the game's visuals more than serviceable. And it's always fun to shoot up AI zombies with three other people online. Unfortunately the demo doesn't support Versus mode nor the other two new modes that are debuting in Left 4 Dead 2 (Scavenge and Realism).

All in all the demo does just what it is supposed to do; give you a nice taste of the game. Fans of Left 4 Dead 1 may have wanted to check out at least one of the two new gameplay modes but, hey, Valve knows you are going to spend your money on the sequel anyway. November 17 can't get here fast enough. Remember the demo is available to everyone with a Steam account on Nov. 3 and you can pre-load it right now.