Uh, you can go past Private 3 on PC at least. Rank 11 is the highest you can get.
It is indeed because they wanted to keep certain things locked. If they didn't do that, I'd have all the sniper rifles unlocked by now, and I doubt they'd let that happen.

Side note: Really interested in seeing how good the "Magnum ammo" upgrade will be. It upgrades the damage your bullets do, but I wonder how much., This game needs to come out sooner!

So all the exp and such I earned in the demo is going to go straight to the game itself? Pretty awesome.

This game looks amazing. First time I've really looked into it and it looks a lot better than call of duty.

Though I'm having a bit of trouble signing up for the beta. I go to the sign-up form. Enter my e-mail address, Date of birth, country, selected "PC" for console, and checked to get the BC2 newsletter. When I click on enter, it says "Please Enter a valid e-mail address, your date of birth, country, select a console, and sign up for the BC2 newsletter". It's as if I didn't type anything into the boxes at all.

Anybody know why?

Like I said, Not sure if there are HC servers on the demo but in the PC beta there's no way of knowing other than the name of the server, They usually write down Harcore in the server name.

I have no idea why, but http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/battlefield-bad-company-2/pc-beta/ is giving out beta keys for free so you don't need to bother with the official website.

It says they are out of keys

When you play with a team and actually coordinate, this game is amazing. One thing I love is pure atmosphere. The excellent sounds, explosions, and vehicles all contribute to a very war-like feel. It may not be completely realistic (weapon damage a tad too low and no prone?!!!), but it is much more so than COD and many other shooters (very cool how snipers have to account for bullet drop and lead their shots), and it rewards tactics rather than twitch, lone wolf gameplay.

I like how you can't go prone. It would be a mess if you could, think about all the snipers

Yeah but people go prone in real war all the time its a seasoned tactic. It would make it easier to hide from snipers and add more immersion. If the damage was increased prone would be useful for everyone, snipers and assault alike imo. Hell, it would be useful as of now. But oh well, I still love the game.

I am LOVING this game. To me, it feels like what the BF games should have been all along. However, I do share the gripe about it taking a ton of bullets to kill someone sometimes. The sounds are incredible though. It is the only game where I truly feel like I am running across a battlefield. I can't wait until I get to play more than just the one map.

The first Bad Company also took a good amount of bullets to kill someone. I think it emphasizes teamwork in taking down enemies.

I absolutely love the multiplayer demo for this game. It is far better than Modern Warfare 2 in my opinion. I love the slower pace and the fact that you can drive vehicles around and there is an actual medic class. Now I just need to convince the wife that I need it...

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/oranos1992/BFBC2Game2010-02-1121-48-06-95.jpg
Nice, no?

When I am an attacker it seems that 25% of the time when I spawn at the initial spawn point, I have no parachute and fall strait down to my death. What gives?

Press space.

Thanks. Any idea why this is happening though?

Bah, I hate how weak the sniper is.

Yeah, I have horrible accuracy, but still... 18.5% accuracy, 80+ shots, only 4 dead. That's ~15 hits. Frikin' machine guns do as much damage long range as a sniper bullet but they can be constantly fired!

Maybe theyre trying for a bit more realism with your chute not opening and having to use your backup?

I hope the demo doesn't count for the real game. I had a KD of well over 4 and 5, but I played MW2 for about a week, came back, and now it's a 1.42. >.< Oh well. I guess KD doesn't matter as much in this game.

Now if they told you how to open it... I'm on xbox I checked the controls and I didn't see anything for it...

Yeah. I suffered about seven deaths from spawning in a day on Attackers before realizing that A was the button to pull out the parachute. Also works for jumping off cliffs, buildings, out of a chopper, etc.

That happened to me too but I wasn't looking at the screen so when I looked all I saw was the epic fail on the screen...

I loved bad company one and I love the BC 2 demo. I played them on the ps3 and I rate them over the call of duty series because i dont like small multiplayer arenas which is why I was also disappointed in the alien vs predator demo.

I love the fact that theres a lot more tactics involved in MP for instance running straight across the field takes a while and if you ran from your base to the enemy base you would just get cut down by snipers so you are best running from cover to cover or take alternate routes in a bid to outfox the enemy.

I loved being able to sneak up on a guy who is taking down my team with a machine gun turret and using my combat knife to take him out or as a sniper finding a small safe spot in a bush a couple of yards away from the enemy base and taking out the artillery gun by calling in air strikes or popping off some head shots.

I could be very evil in those games :gun:

Edit: the attackers RC chopper rocks.

I cant figure out how to use the weapons on it.

It takes a while for it to reload, ages to be exact but I think you press fire and then hover the target over whatever you want to shoot at just press all the buttons until you get a tarfeting reticule. Bit of advice though keep the rc high as possible so that enemies arent as aware to its prescene its not that well armoured.