Left 4 Dead Left 1 Underwhelmed

See what I did there?

So yeah, I played the L4D demo on the 360, and was decidedly unimpressed. I really want to like this game, and I'm not completely writing it off yet, but I was disappointed in several aspects of the game.

• Unsatisfying weapons. Combination of weak sounds, lack of great visual feedback when firing, I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is, but the weapons "feel" underpowered.
• Mediocre graphics. I know they need to keep detail down a bit to preserve a stable framerate, but it looks like it should've come out alongside Half-Life 2.
• Biggest one: It does not feel like a co-op game. Sure there are moments where you have to save your teammates from a zombie but that's pretty much it. It seems like the action is too fast and too random to provide any meaningful sense of teamwork beyond "stick together and shoot the zombies". A game like Gears 2, which is not even marketed as a pure co-op experience, feels like a much more satisfying co-operative experience because there are plenty of moments where you have to split up and support each other in different ways and so on. I haven't actually played it with friends yet so maybe that will be a better experience, but right now the whole thing just feels undercooked, which is strange because this game has been a long time coming.