Let's face it, though. Pre-order betas, the vast majority of the time, are a marketing and sales tool used to notch up hype and awareness. These sorts of betas are usually put out once a game is stable and the mechanics are solid because people, having already paid for it, are going to treat it as the real thing. And bad word of mouth about a game, even one in "beta," will have a very noticeable impact on a game's sales.
Look at the BC2 pre-order beta. Essentially a finished product. There were some issues like a broken friends list, and really slow server listings with iffy filters, but in the matches? A polished product already, with no game-play bugs. People who bought into the pre-order could then turn around and "sell" the game to their friends.
That's a greater motivation behind these types of pre-order betas than any amount of testing.
The only difference between the beta and release were the finished friends and server features and some minor class reballancing. No mechanical or game-play changes. The game is pretty much done. True enough, 4 months is a long time to polish the game, but it's just polishing features that are already there.
Plus, that bearded guy in all the adds reminds me of that terrible game that came out last year or so "Rogue" or something.
