Been playing the PS4 "Alpha" (demo) the past few hours, they announced it at E3 and had you enter your PSN in to a website. It said "randomly selected", but I think they let everyone in - I know two others who joined and we all got emailed codes today.
It's clearly a game that I will love unless something goes horribly wrong in the next few months. It's basically Halo X Borderlands X Warframe. Very pretty looking in parts, disappointingly low frame rate (30 cap). Def has the feeling of Halo.
There are 3 classes to choose from, Titan / Hunter / Warlock, with a level cap of 8 for the alpha. The hardest enemies I have encountered have been a 9, excluding when I was exploring and found a cluster of ?? enemies that one-shotted me instantly lol. All 3 classes are similar, with different special moves / agility / hit points. I've only played a Titan so far, which has special moves of "super punch" type thing, a flashbang grenade, and a ground slam AOE.
You have a star wars type speederbike you can call in at almost any time outdoors to scoot about the landscape, it's handy. It looks like more will be available, but I don't think they are in this version.
There are only a few missions, a soloable level 3 which you start off on, an "open world" level 4 which is pretty awesome, you just drive about on your speeder bike finding mission beacons (which usually are "kill X enemies" or "go to marker and scan the location"), do it and then go find another. Other players are roaming about doing the same, and you can help them, ignore them, party up or such. You can also point at them, wave to them, dance at them, or sit down on the floor lol. Once in a while a "public event " is available, where enemies of a higher level than normal appear to destroy something, and you all team up to protect it. Or destroy the enemy spider-tank, those are the only two of those I've seen so far. Final mission is a level 6 "strike" which requires a team of 3 - it auto-grouped me with 2 others. This is hard and requires focus fire and sensible tactics to clear at any reasonable pace. It contains two bosses, the aforementioned spider-tank and another final boss. Both are very "bullet sponge", but I think we were doing it kinda wrong
Throughout these missions you get loot, which is usually stuff like new guns or armor parts. There is a main base called "The tower", this is where you go between missions to visit the shops, and point/dance at other players. There is a gun shop, a post office, some commanders that point you in direction for story missions (not really in this demo), and a gambling place where you pay him some currency for a random weapon. If there is to be any F2P BS in this game, currency would be it I guess but there isn't a hint of it here. I already have far more money than I know what to do with.
Then there is the PVP, the only mode available in the current alpha is 6v6 domination. This is great fun! You are "balanced", so while you bring your loot along with you, it is the same as everyone else's. A shotgun is a shotgun, but you need to have acquired one before you can bring it. Like in the PVE content, you carry three weapons. Your main assault rifle has ammo from the start, but secondary and tertiary (heavy) weapon do not, it is only available from pickups that appear from time to time. There are vehicles too, some seem super OP, a big speedracer tank with rocket launchers - but it's slow and heavy, and on any of these you ride like a motorbike so you are exposed for headshotting etc, someone with a heavy weapon can wreck you easily also.
The audio is a mixed bag. Music is incredible. Guns sound superb, especially outdoors. Robo-Tyrion sounds weird. The domination announcer sounds very odd.
I will certainly pre-order now to assure a place in the beta. Almost certain day-1 purchase.
Long and rambly post sorry, hopefully interesting to some.