I had to write a piece on the DMC playable demo today for the site that I have been writing for. Not being overly familiar with the game, here is my attempt. Let me know what you guys think, and whether you have tried the demo.

Capcoms Devil May Cry reboot has a demo on the XBL marketplace today and this reviewer spent some time with it.

Firstly, I am not a huge Devil May Cry fan so my familiarity with the series is not fantastic, that being said even I can see that Dante has had an overhaul in the looks department. He has lost his white hair and appears significantly younger than I remember him to be. The character re-design has been the cause of a great deal of hue and cry from more hardcore fans of the series, of which developer Ninja Theory has had to justify by highlighting that were not pretending we are Japanese, or apologising for it. (Source: OXM) The new look of Dante is at odds with what I expected, however it would be churlish of me to say that it detracts from the action.

The demo features two chapters (Under Watch and Secret Ingredient) that the player can get their teeth in to. The first, Under Watch is a small story level which serves as a tutorial introducing the various controls, the second is a boss battle with a predictably repulsive demon.

The demo looks great, the aesthetic is very much that of another Ninja Theory game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, with character models and environments really echoing that game. It looks gorgeous. The environments twist and morph as you walk through them and there is a real sense that "Limbo" is alive and not especially friendly. I was particularly impressed with the motion capture work in Enslaved, and this is put together with good effect in what I have seen of the demo. My only negative in this particular area was the dialogue for the Boss battle - I will admit to laughing out loud at the complete ridiculousness of it which was, in my opinion, really poor with an unnecessary amount of profanity between Dante and the Demon, it struck me as lazy. However, voice work elsewhere looks good, so hopefully that is an isolated incident.

The game play is satisfying, with easy controls to grasp, but I expect difficult to master. My dexterity with melee combat games is not the best so I played the demo on Human difficulty, that being said, I did manage to pull off a few sweet combos and I am sure that veterans of the genre will be pulling ridiculous combinations together. In this particular iteration Dante has an angel and demon mode which you interchange between each other to solve the levels puzzles and open up new areas, and each side features a different arsenal of weaponry that Dante can wield. The demo hints at plenty of collectibles to search out for upgrades etc., although it didnt make that particular aspect of the game clear. The combat is visceral, and acrobatic if you have the dexterity to pull it off and, as always you are marked on the style and speed with which you complete each section. Of particular interest to the more skilled player is Dante's Devil Trigger which slows down time (and turns Dante's hair white, for those purists out there) and launches your enemies in to the air to perform endless aerial combinations, complete with a thunderous bass soundtrack - it looks, and sounds awesome.

Are you ******* looking at me?

All in all, I would say that this is a successful demo. It has certainly piqued my interest in the game a little more, and might silence some of the naysayers and critics of where Ninja Theory and Capcom are taking the franchise. Check it out.

DMC is scheduled for release on 15 January 2013.