Pre-ordered it ages ago. Loved the beta. Preloaded it a couple of days ago(50 gigs, Bah!! Worth it!). First thing I'll be doing after finishing my shift at 7 in the morn is rushing home to play the hell out of this game. Sure I die a lot, well a bit more than a lot but it's well worth it. If anyone wants to play, PM me.
Well for starters, I wouldn't expect core gameplay mechanics to change, even if the beta was released earlier. Modern games require a ton of coding and so some gameplay mechanics could very well be the result of several months worth of work. There are plenty of cases where devs don't want to eliminate unpopular mechanics…