I tried the demo today and thought that it was pretty decent. The change in the button layout is going to be the biggest adjustment to those who've been playing Guitar Hero since the beginning. I instinctively tried moving down the fret instead of moving my fingers down. The lack of a 4th set of buttons for the pinkie that could have made power chords more natural to me as a guitar player seems like a missed opportunity, but I understand they are trying to make it easier to keep your fingers in an area and not get lost.

The FMV wasn't really noticeable since your attention is on the note highway. The sound on the tv wasn't high enough to really hear much besides the song so I'll have to experience everything with my headphones next Tuesday. I wasn't crazy about the demo song choices, but the actual setlist and GHTV look promising. Lastly, load times were minimal and looks like you can pop in a song rather quickly.

So what are your thoughts about Guitar Hero taking a semi new direction and making some changes? I think it makes me more interested in trying to get good at something new yet a little familiar.

I tried it at Gamescom and...it's alright, i guess.

I did not know most of the Songs offered in the Demo, and for the longest time it seemed like the Setlist would have no interest for me whatsoever although that slightly improved.

As for the Guitar, i couldn't really get used to the new button setup in the short time i played, but from what i did play it felt different, but honestly neither better or worse than the classic GH/RB five Button setup.

As for the FMV, it's well made but as you said, while playing i hardly could pay attention to it.

I've already devoted myself to Rock Band 4, with legacy DLC support and y'know, instruments other than the guitar. I'm not really sure if there are very many people who are interested in a very classic Guitar Hero experience, but i guess those who are will find a more sensibly priced and elaborately presented game here in comparision.

That said, Activision being Activision, i have trouble believing that there will not be anything about the game that screws over players in the long run.

I can't really see what would screw people over in the long run. That said, I don't really know how their GHTV music system will fully work. Do we get to play music we purchase with real money or game currency offline? How long do we have to play before we can play newer music on demand?

I'm trying not to get real excited. I do love Guitar Hero and it was one of my favorite games I played in college. I don't expect it to be a cultural phenomenon or anything, but I see what they are trying to do and it makes me feel better that it's not just another run of the mill Guitar Hero. I just hope that the changes they made still keep the game fun and don't run the series into the ground by coming out every year.

@hairymike87: From my understanding of it you can play all the music on GHTV for free because it's just like old MTV, it'll play music videos on loop forever without you picking. If you want to play a specific song you can buy it or rent it out for a bit, kind of like Singstar I believe. But when you buy them, you're buying them for your Guitar Hero account and not your PS4 or your XB1. You also don't download them to your system.

That's how i understood it too. It's basically a handful of music television channels with Guitar Hero Gameplay running alongside it, with the option of somehow buying or renting specific titles with F2P currency (you're also supposed to get by just playing stuff) to play on demand.

With the Setlist released so far, it's also not entirely clear which of these Songs will be on disc as part of the "Live" FMV Gameplay, and which ones are only on GHTV (also, there seems to be the possibility of FMV Gameplay Songs being added as DLC, which is also a bit confusing as of now)

Having an endless, easy access for new Songs is a great idea, but i'm not one who'd want to just play whatever song is just on. I'd like to pick the songs i play, and as such, i hoped that to be more of a Guitar Hero "Spotify" rather than an Guitar Hero "MTV"

I think the Spotify portion comes in with the subscriptions. Don't know how much it'll cost, but I believe you'll have access to all songs for periods of time.

So there are subscriptions too?

That sounds confusing and frustrating, leading back to my "I do not trust Activision to not screw me over somehow" point

I thought it wasn't the worst thing in the world, but the 3 buttons top/bottom configuration were really eh overall and hitting notes felt really weightless. I'll probably put my cards in with RB4 once they fix some stuff (like those DLC menus)