Crackdown -- Initial Impression.

I'm eternally plugging away at Phantasy Star Universe and I'm currently playing Gurumin so why not jump into Crackdown. Crackdown was developed by Realtime Words for the Xbox 360 and it is published by Microsoft Game Studios. Needless to say, it's an X360 exclusive. When Crackdown was originally announced and shown it was lost in the shuffle. It didn't stand out. It didn't seem like much, compared to say Halo 3. It's this connection to that other Microsoft Game Studios published title that sort of gave Crackdown its dubious notoriety. In a tactically brilliant move, Microsoft has attached Crackdown to the Halo 3 beta by guaranteeing players a spot in the beta by purchasing a first-run copy of Crackdown. Suddenly everyone was aware of Crackdown. It became known as the free game you'll get when you fork over the $59 for the Halo 3 beta key on the disc. Gamers laughed. The message boards were ablaze with people patting themselves on the back for being so witty. Then something happened that caused a surprising shift. The Crackdown demo was released on Xbox Live Marketplace. What's this? Crackdown is good. Who would have guessed? How can that be? How can I be sure it's going to be good just from a demo and a few hours with the final game? The details will follow...