With the Call of Duty 4 hype reaching fever pitch on both sides of the Atlantic, InfinityWard decided to appease the community and release a PC demo. Although refusing to offer up some mutliplayer action, the demo allowed players to complete a whole level in the single player and, more importantly, test out some of the new guns on offer in Call of Duty 4. Other new features include nightvision goggles, flash grenades and a sprint feature.

Initial reactions varied from the delighted to the outright disgusted but the fact that it's still unclear which features will change in the final version means that players should retain an open mind. GotFrag spoke to a selection of the first players to try out the demo, picking up on their initial impressions and reaction.

"At first I wasn't overly impressed but then after putting in some console commands (drawdecals, polygon and so on) everything felt a bit smoother. The un-zoomed aiming seems a bit random but it is hard to tell at this point. The game seems to have a good flow to it though and will probably own after some tweaks. The snipers in particularly appear unbalanced and something will need to be done about them."
- Palmz (Team-eSource)

"Alright, looking at the greatly anticipated single player demo that finally hit us today I can simply say, was that it? We've been waiting and hyping something, and this was all we got. The maps are blurry, the hit-boxes are as weird as in CoD2 and the recoil is nowhere to be found. I can't stop thinking that this was all a big joke, IW will release the real demo tomorrow or something. I guess our hopes now lies with the multiplayer being a completely different game, because if it's like the single player demo, our community will die and all we worked for in CoD2 will be long lost. in short, IW are terrible and this was a really really really bad game."
- Flow (Copenhagen-Esport)

"The CoD4 demo is good, the things I like are how good it runs on low settings, the weapons are new and refreshing, shooting cars and they blow up is pretty cool, shooting through walls is really cool, flash bangs are great, and well lastly i hope bunny-hopping and sprint stay in because it gives it a more ET feeling which i think is good for the game.I also think the rocket launcher should be in maybe given to classes, would be awesome if this game involved classes. The only thing i didn't like about the game was Vista, took ages to ask whether to approve or disapprove installing the .exe like 5 minutes, but don't worry it runs really smoothly on Vista once you get it installed so there shouldn't be any problems there."
- Mick (Team Dignitas)

"Before the game came out, there was a large fuss going on about how good will the game be, now after the demo has finally came out and people can taste the first piece of it, I can assure that this really is the FPS game of the year. It has everything all FPS gamers want. From graphics to physics. From tactics to perfect environment. And i think that with a little help from Activision we will see this game at WCG 2008. One of my favourite parts in this game really is the possibility to wallbang and the recoil, which will be hard and at the same time not too hard to master. So let's wait for the full game."
- Storm (Dtekt)

"I think CoD4 will set new standards. In my opinion it could probably be the best one of the whole CoD Series. It seems like the developers have learned a lot from the communities feedback over the last years and I am sure CoD4 has huge potential, especially if I compare the CoD4 demo to previous demos of the CoD Series. The game seems to be much faster than other parts of CoD and if you combine this with the announced features like perks, new tactical elements, the fixed hitboxes, which are really nice in the single player demo, or a lot of space for modifications on your own, which is very important for competitive gaming at CoD4, this game seems to run straight ahead. In addition to that I have to say that the hardware specs really surprised me but it should be possible for nearly every one to play CoD4 on minimum specs. So I would say let's count every second until its release ladies!"
- iFearDilemma (The6Devils)

"I liked the graphic part of the game although I got bored playing a demo that was presented in so many videos. I knew from the start where enemies were. Still has the CoD2 feeling which is good in the end. Since I'm a big BF2 fan, I'll enjoy playing this game a lot."
- Kolonel (Stheno)

"I was excited to finally get to play CoD4 since I didn't have a chance to play the Xbox beta. I finished watching the longest yard and installed the game. It didn't run smoothly for me but that was to be expected. Also I can't say I was all too excited about the demo. But I'm one of those guys that's always a bit afraid of change. I've noticed it's harder to shoot unzoomed and the recoil is a bit harder than in CoD2 in my opinion."
- Davy (Tek9 Networks)