10 Demos BETTER Than The Actual Game
4. Crackdown 2
The length of a demo is a tricky thing to judge - you want to give away enough to get people excited, but not so much that they're burned out by the time they reach the end. It's a balancing act Crackdown 2's demo pulled off with aplomb, as it lasted just long enough to rekindle the magic of its prequel, but finished before people realized Crackdown 2 was little more than a zombie-themed reskin of the first game.
The first Crackdown sold itself as a superhero fantasy, letting players bound around a terrorist-infested city as a super-powered agent. The Crackdown 2 demo successfully recaptured the giddy joy of Crackdown at its best, levelling your character at a vastly accelerated rate (similar to the trick pulled by the Bravely Default demo) so you could spend an enjoyable half-hour acting as a gun-toting, building-bounding mixture of Nick Fury and The Incredible Hulk.
Unfortunately Crackdown 2 - like its predecessor - becomes worse the longer you play it, as it simply lacks the variety needed to sustain the length of the campaign. Factor in the fact that it takes place in the same exact location as the previous game, and the magic fades away even quicker.
The Crackdown games are best enjoyed in short, sharp bursts, and the accelerated levelling of the Crackdown 2 demo provides the shortest, sharpest burst of the series' trademark formula.