Oh, Ninja Blade. I didn't go into this demo with high hopes, but I wasn't ready to trash it without giving it a chance. I wasn't overly impressed. 

There were too many Quick Time Events (QTEs). I won't get into how I'm not the biggest fan of these although I don't loathe them; however, Ninja Blade just seemed to go overboard with them. I also wasn't sure which QTEs would provide a retry option upon failure or death. It didn't seem to make sense.

The level provided in the demo was very dark and the enemies seemed uninspired. They were all the same color and lacking a lot of detail although the bosses had some nice detail. The second set of enemies I was confronted with by the demo were called "carriers" and gave the impression of being zombie-like. The big boss battle at the end was annoying. It was difficult to figure out when the thing was going to attack and I spent some time standing around waiting for it to make a move so I could attack. Also annoying was the fact it was hard to tell if I was hitting the thing or not. I gave up trying to figure out why standing next to it and looking at it didn't necessarily mean I was actually hitting it. I finally got bored and quit out of the demo.

I hope the demo wasn't showcasing the best of the game because I was left with the impression that it's mediocre. It seemed like an executive sat around and said, people like ninjas, zombies and those quick time event thingies, let's mash it all into one game.  If you like ninjas, zombies and QTEs, maybe you'll enjoy this more than I did. The demo is available now for Xbox LIVE Gold members. The game releases exclusively for the Xbox 360 on April 7th by Microsoft.