If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few months, then you already know that Dead Space 2 will have an online multiplayer component.  Many Dead Space fans are not happy with that decision, and are concerned that the focus on multiplayer will take focus away from the single player campaign, which is what the series’ fans really care about.

I don’t think that will be an issue.  We’ve seen other games take a similar path like Uncharted, Bioshock, and Assassin’s Creed and in all those instances the addition of multiplayer doesn’t seem to have affected the single player.  And truth be told, I actually really enjoyed the multiplayer in all three of those games.

Yeah, I’ll admit, it’s unlikely I’ll really ever get deep into the multiplayer of Dead Space 2 like I would with a game like Call of Duty or Gears of War.  Still, the appeal of getting to play as a Necromorph is not lost on me.  I’ve always wanted to suit up as one of the bad guys and wreak havoc on the humans like they do to me all day long in the campaign.  Multiplayer will also allow me to experience the Dead Space universe with a group of friends, and that is not something to sneeze at.

So yeah, the multiplayer is tacked on to Dead Space 2 for the sake of another bullet point on the back of a box, but if history is any indication it’s not going to affect the single player game anyway, so who cares?  Plus, the dead space 2 cheats are confined to single player, so there’s nothing to worry about there.

The Dead Space 2 demo is out, and after months and months of waiting I finally got a chance to play it.  So what did I think?

Let me give you some background on myself first.  I’m a huge Dead Space fan.  I loved the first game, I loved the comics, I even liked the much maligned Dead Space Ignition arcade game.  When I say that my hype for this game was off the charts, you know I’m not kidding around.

So when I played the demo and it lived up to the hype in every aspect of the game, that’s really a great demonstration of just how good the game is.  All of the great things about the original Dead Space game are back, and they’re all even better than they were before.

Bloody dismemberment?  Check.

Horrifying atmosphere?  Check.

Intense action sequences?  Check.

The only fault that I could find with the demo was that I wish it would have kept going longer, because I couldn’t get enough.  Instead, I’ve bided my time while waiting for the full game’s release by playing the demo over and over and over again, and I’ll continue to do so until it finally releases.

Dead Space 2 officially has a release date.  The game will drop on January 25th, 2011.  It will release on a multitude of systems, including the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC consoles.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am reminded of that South Park episode where Cartman freezes himself so he can wake up in the future when the Wii is finally released.  I can’t wait to get my hands on Dead Space 2 and the wait is unbearable, though it is nice to finally have a set release date?

So, what are you going to do to pass the time?  Playing Dead Space Ignition is one option but that will only last for a little while.