The ironic thing about BETAs nowadays is people try out the game which might not have otherwise of played, and when they do lpay it often notice only the minor flaws and use those flaws as reason to never play the game again. Granite, some games do come out too early and the players general overview being that of flaws and game mechanics being wrong is usually correct... however a game can change drastically from beta to current.

What is too bad is when the beta blows all the hype out of a game only to deflate with all the negative publicity about minor flaws and easy to fix mechanics being the full extent of many reviewers. One example Id give is Lineage 2, the game had a decent following from the original (lineage 1, a more pvp advanced version of diablo 2) and the beta for lineage 2 was very glitchy, had alot of balance issues and overall only held the "niche" players to the game. The game could have been a much greater success had the beta been only company-wide and the game actually released during the "prelude (first real patch for Lineage2)" but that is something I cannot say factionally only as opinion (from playing it since OB to 5 patches later and 2+ years into it).