BioWare announced yesterday that they will be releasing a demo for Mass Effect 3 on February 14, but we had no details on it. We do now.
The demo will allow players to try out both, the single player and the multiplayer components of the game. The single player component will offer
“roughly 1 to 2 hours of content” and will allow players to play two areas of the game. “The opening level featuring the Reaper attack on Earth, and a level further into the game where Shepard travels to an alien home world to seek their assistance in the war effort,” BioWare explains.
The multiplayer co-op component will give you two maps, Slum and Noveria, to play on, and will be open to all players on February 17. Those who have Battlefield 3 and have an activated Online pass, however, will be able to gain early access to the co-op right from February 14, if they sign in from the same Origin account. The co-op multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 will not be playable locally (that is, split screen), only online. The MP component of the demo will be taken down on March 5.
The Xbox 360 version of the demo will feature Kinect compatibility. If you are downloading the PC version of the demo, you will need Origin, just like for the full game.
More details here.