I've played the demo and I have to say: I haven't seen graphics or an art style this bad in a long, long time.

Seriously, the camera jerks about, everything looks like it was compressed to some sort of sub-standard definition resolution, stretched to HD size resolution, and covered up with a grainy filter that also adds these ugly pink lines on every light source.

Don't believe me?
Makes sense.
I didn't believe my eyes when I first saw it.
I also looked through the options to see if I could turn it off.
Nope, I guess we've advanced so far in graphical technology that we might as well start going back and making things look crappy on purpose.
But much like pre-torn jeans, I find this to be just redundant and stupid.

Video for proof. Go ahead and watch in HD, it won't make a difference, heck, it might even get worse.
Start at about 2 minutes in. And yes, that is actual game footage.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5gDEPqa6GnI&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/5gDEPqa6GnI&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;fs=1</a>

I just can't help but sit back and laugh at the whole daggone thing.

Yeah, it was intentional. And I personally think it looks worse in game.

Maybe some other people can play with it like that, but I can't.
I like a bit of eye-candy with my games. ya know.
I mean come on, technology has come this far, why in the world make it look worse on purpose?

Yeah, I have to agree, it doesn't look great from that vid - even at 720p.

Likewise I haven't played the game yet, but I remember the first one quite well, and it didn't look as 'blocky' or as grainy as this, and that lighting effect is very distracting also - disappointing to say the least!!

That doesn't look like it was intentional to me, more like a bad recording. I know some games have started going for the grainy movie reel texture, WET as an example but it worked well with that, that one just looks quite poor. Never played the first and I don't see me being too tempted to buy this if that's what we can expect from it.

I must say despite the fact this ain't my type of game, I did like the demo. The cutscenes are pretty well made, and everything has a cinematic touch to it. I actually thought the effects are quite fun to look at. The handcamera during running also looks pretty cool. Kind of as if someone filmed a snuff movie.