I’ve had the opportunity to play the Left 4 Dead demo on my 2 year old HP laptop. I only played SP, and even set to lowest settings, my framerate was scarier than the zombies. Looks like my hopes of some after-work fun are dashed for now. I’ll play tonight on my new machine.

I did manage to get to the end of the demo (we all died at the end!). The buddy AI seems quite competent, and the AI director really mixed things up. A couple of times it really surprised me that enemies showed up where they did.

Update:

I played quite a bit last night on my good PC (good except for random BSoDs). The game is fantastic. As you’ve probably heard, there are issues on the MP side that are being worked on. I’m confident that it will all get worked out, and I don’t regret pre-ordering at all. The game truly requires a lot of cooperation. Playing with people who aren’t using voice communication is a drag. People, hook up your mics!