That's quite the process. I guess I truly am a "casual gamer" in a "hardcore gamer" world.

ogs, I'm going to download the PC beta software, too, so I have a chance to play with my uncle and my brother. I'll let you know if I have a better experience being able to get into a squad together to play.

Guys, I think you are putting too much into this beta, not to mention the fact that you are all more comfortable playing conquest over rush. The gameplay feels a little too frenetic for sure. I think if they allowed conquest on this map as well many of your gripes wouldn't feel as serious. All I'm saying is give it a chance. Generally you have a week to pick up / cancel your pre-order from release date. Maybe a rental would help? Though, from what I've always heard BFBC2 was a mess online at launch. I have to believe with as high profile as this is now, I can't believe this won't be more polished right at launch.

A major aspect of the last 2 BF games has been destructible environments. Blowing a hole in the wall to create a new pathway. Or taking down an entire building to kill a sniper.

I don't see that in the beta map. You can knock down trees and those flimsy barrier shields. But has anyone actually blown a hole in a wall or destroyed any major structure?

You playing on Xbox? I read that they turned off a lot of the destructible environment on the Xbox demo because it was causing some of the major geometry/terrain issues (such as ending up underneath the ground when crawling). I'll see if I can find the post about it in a bit here.

I actually don't mind the style and pace of the gameplay. My issues at this point are with presentation, frame drops, some of the pacing inherent in dropping medpacks & ammo/jumping walls/switching weapons etc. Definitely a product of my high expectations, I know; but it definitely makes me less excited for the game.

Around the 3rd set of mcom stations there is a locker room type area. The entry ways were blown open so that people couldn't hide behind the doorway.

I'm trying to play the beta but it just keeps saying "failed to ping closest server".

Yea, I'm on the 360. Is anyone seeing major destruction on the PC or PS3?

I've seen that too. But that's about it for destruction outside of glass and plywood. I haven't seen anyone create an alternate pathway to a crate. Or take out the side of a building so snipers can't hide in the windows.

I haven't paid much attention, but I did get killed by some debris falling off of a building near the last pair of mcoms.

I wonder if part of the lack of destruction is that few people are playing the engineer class because there are no vehicles to worry about.

I'm disappointed to read that some of the issues that led me to prefer CoD over Battlefield (while still thinking BF is a good, fun franchise) are there, at least in multiplayer.
I absolutely hated choosing the spawn area and the load time you had to endure after you got killed. I don't give a fuck where I respawn, just put me somewhere away from the enemy and let's go!
Weapons were way overpowered, it felt like it was one hit one kill, regardless of where you were hit. That and it was extremely frustrating being killed 90% of the time by an unseen enemy. Rarely saw who killed me.
BF feels like a game more suited for camping (as it would be in real life I suppose) where in CoD you can at least move around the map and not feel like you're going to hear the zing of a sniper's bullet kill you every time.
Nevertheless it's an good franchise overall, the single player campaign was fun. I'm sure I'll pick this up, but CoD's multiplayer stands above BF's.

I heartily disagree. I'll take vehicles, destructible environments, and dogtags over any CoD mechanic any and every day. This beta proves squat other than they are working on more of a CoD feeling for certain aspects, i.e. going prone, holding your knife out for quicker kills, and individual weapon leveling up for attachments instead of general kit attachments.

I just felt lost playing the demo. I have never played a BF game before, and really the only FPS I devoted a significant amount of multiplayer time with (referring to this generation of FPS) was Modern Warfare 2.

Spawning took an assload of time. I didn't understand what was the big difference between the classes. I understood they had different load outs, but other than that?

I noticed the huge clipping issue when crawling outside. I would get shot out of nowhere constantly.

Not one person had a mic. I will take annoying trolls over silence any day.

Two of my friends tried joining as a squad, and one kept getting booted constantly. Not a good sign. I already have an inherent distrust of all things online when it comes to EA, and this did not come close to alleviating my fears. This is especially important since I would be buying this game for the multiplayer aspect.

I'm sorry, but how is it that this doesn't look better than MW2. I felt the same about Black Ops. These games just feel cheap compared to it. I understand people have a problem with the "arcadey" aspect of MW2, but I feel it has a level of polish that I'm not seeing here. I understand it's a beta, but I can't imagine graphically it will look much better.

Positives. I thought the animation for climbing over a barrier was actually pretty quick. I never threw a med pack out so I can't speak to that, and I have no idea how to do it anyway. The level was really big, and I thought that was fun.

Hopefully I see some improvement or I'm canceling my preorder.

To anyone who's also played the Alpha on PC, does the Beta seem like a step back? I find it very buggy. I keep popping up in weird locations (sometimes several feet behind where I was running towards) and the controls are really glitchy.

I installed the beta on my PC this morning and right away get an error connecting to EA

It's done with the D-pad. I think this is how it works.

UP - Turns on Laser or Flashlight if equipped
DOWN - Rate of Fire (single burst or auto)
LEFT - Gadget #1 like Ammo or Health Packs (depending on support class)
RIGHT - Gadget #2 like Defib

If anyone's interested, here's Dice's Top 10 Metro Map Tips:

DICE's top ten Battlefield 3 Operation Metro tips:

1 - Stick to your team mates, and remember to spawn on them to stay close to the fight.

2 - Use your kit specific abilities to help your team mates. Assault can hand out med kits, Engineers can repair vehicles, and Support can hand out ammo.

3 - Make sure when you have armed an M-COM station, that you defend it to make sure it is destroyed.

4 -The bombed-out tunnel section in Operation Métro is an excellent place to use a flashlight as one of your weapon attachments. Use it to light the tunnels up - and to blind your enemies.

5 -Attach bipods to your weapon and deploy it automatically by pushing up against cover or going prone and zooming in - this gives you a huge increase in accuracy and stability.

6 - Use suppressive shooting (fire close to enemies behind cover) to negatively effect the enemy's fighting capabilities.

7 - Watch out for falling debris as this can hurt you. But you can also hurt your enemies by taking out buildings with the Engineer's RPG.

8 - Shotguns are excellent for CQC (Close Quarters Combat) in the tighter tunnels sections.

9 - Fire automatic weapons in short bursts for accuracy, or switch to single fire mode if applicable.

10 - To grab your enemy's dog tag as a souvenir, do a stealth knife kill from behind.

I had the same issue. I got the following response over at Blu-ray.com:

A bit cumbersome but it works.

To whomever asked... Yes. I've posted on the BF3 forum. But A) I dont get the impression this will make it through the thousands of threads that go like this:

Poster 1: I don't like blah blah blah about the BF3 beta.
Poster 2: go play Call of No Skill Duty then, douchebag.

And B) if anyone were forced to sift through the bullshit they are not going to come out of there with a clear mind. Crazy town in there.

This is where they request you to direct your comments. An open message board. Brilliant.

That board is a mess. I tried to locate an official bug discussion thread, but no luck. They've even got the search disabled which makes trying to find anything impossible. I don't know how they can expect any worthwhile constructive feedback with that set-up.

Earlier this week I thought it took forever to spawn because I wasn't understanding exactly how to do it. Now that I do, it feels like respawning is really fast. It's so fast, however, that the defibulaters are absolutely worthless. Unless your teammate's body is right beside you, don't bother making the jog out to revive them because they'll respawn long before you get there. And it's almost pointless to throw out a med pack because death comes so swiftly; a couple shots from an unseen enemy and that's it.

These two elements make me feel like there's no reason to play Assault/Medic. Might as well stick with the Support class and not even bother with med items.

I did have more luck playing the game overall and while it's not growing on me I tolerated it more.

Also, it's not even like a medic can survive a run to revive a teammate either. Pretty much as soon as you step into the open you're toast.

I don't know. Like any aspect of the game, it takes some practice. I had one round where I revived about 15 people. And you get 100 points for each revive. That really adds up.

When you're defending an objective in tight confines, throw some medpacks around. All your teammates are hunkered down in a small area. Often they'll take some damage before mowing down the attackers. Those medpacks help them heal quickly and give you some good points.

Sure. This has always been true about BFBC2.

I've run with the medic class for 75% of my time in Battlefield. The complaint isn't that doesn't make for a useful class, racking up points for personal achievement... just that the teamplay utility of revive/defib/medpack has been castrated by the excessive hit damage and quick respawn. What good is a medpack when it still just takes another shot to bring your teammate down? Or the defib when re-spawn is so quick anyway?

I do, however, like that we now get points for acting a respawn point.

The attackers only get 100 lives per base. Use those up and you lose the game. Reviving a teammate gives your team that life back. If every Medic on the attacking team used the defib whenever possible, they would be a lot harder to beat.

Here's the IGN Beta Guide. Lots of good tips.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_BMCukCSNoQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And here's an official intro video from EA:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8QzxLKSX8os" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>