If you've played Demigod, you will see some influence of that game in SC2. For example, the change relating to tech trees, where you upgrade everything through increasing Research, reminds me of how Demigod characters and buildings and AI units get upgraded. On the plus side, this makes what we would normally think of as Tier 1 units still useful late into the game, because the first units you create get upgraded right along with everything else. This is nice. The possible concern is that (like Demigod) you'll eventually settle on a specific Research progression, and won't vary things much. Some months from now, this might make it feel repetitive. But I still like the general change in direction there. You will also see how the maps are constructed, and will see that they look/feel a lot like Demigod maps - not in specific layout, but ...it just feels similar. (Words fail, but you'll see in the demo.)
Aside from the gameplay impact, there appears to be some Demigod tech borrowed as well. For example, the world lighting reminds me of the overbright bloom (or HDR) used in Demigod, where both games have a very bright (slightly washed-out) look. It looks good, or at least different from other games, but it is something that won't sit well with everyone. I managed to get units stuck beyond recovery on the last demo campaign chapter. No matter what I did, even after clearing out what I thought the units were hanging on, I ended up ctrl+k'ing them to death. That one event instantly reminded me of Demigod AI on one of the maps, where the AI Demigods used to get hung up. It doesn't take very many instances of this to reduce the overall positive opinion, so I do hope such issues get fixed sooner, rather than later. On a more positive note re: Demigod tech, you'll see that SC2 performs better (they weren't lying) with a lot of units on screen, much like Demigod.
I think the game will be a hit out of the gate - it looks good and plays well aside from the dings I gave above. The revamped user interface is much better implemented, though I suspect having less information to provide to the user due to complexity changes compared to the original games gave them more freedom to provide a better layout and presention of the UI.
And that brings me to my larger criticism. SC/SC:FA are good games, and they're complex. And they have their own bugs that remain unpatched. But those games can still be played and enjoyed today, and I believe this is because they do have that additional layer of complexity relating to the economy and resource collection that provides for a player to spend that much more time learning about, and learning how to integrate into an overall tech progression and strategy. I never got a handle on SC2's resource model. It's supposed to be simpler, but I found that I was more confused. I also found that I had to try really hard to run out of resources. I just kept building and constructing and upgrading whatever/wherever I wanted and I didn't run out of resource capacity but for a few seconds. It was strange compared to SC/SC:FA.
I'll buy the game. It's a good game and I hope that despite the developer and publisher best efforts, the community will be able to put together a map making and custom content creation programme. Because that may help provide the fresh content and increase the longevity of the game that might otherwise be at risk for lack of its predecessor's economic model and base building model.
