And yes no doubt the game shipping date and the actual going to gold will be very tight, with probably very little time between code "completion" and going to gold. Again this is pretty typical of the game industry these days, which is why release day patches are so common
It's a problem with AAA titles where the marketing guys have more say than the designers, meaning deadlines get tighter and tighter the more they change.
I didn't play the demo myself at Eurogamer (1 and a half hour queues, sod that), but I talked to people who did and they said it looked nice and there was nothing obviously wrong with it. There must be some reason why the beta isn't out, but from what people have played so far, there isn't.
