In a somewhat strange scenario, I find myself having access to three game betas: Final Fantasy XIV, Starcraft II and Halo: Reach. Very strange to have three very different experiences from well established publishers.
FFXIV
Basically unplayable. To participate in this beta, you have to plan your life around their hours. The game itself is... well, even staying connected at all was a challenge, much less dealing with lag or actually playing the game. They've since improved, but FFXIV definitely earns its label of being alpha-quality.
The sad part is that alpha code is really not supposed to be tested by the public. They may call it a "closed alpha/beta" but it is still going out to people in general, and not restricted to just the developer and internal QA. I think they really should have fixed the glaring issues (especially in performance) before releasing this to the public.
My initial impressions have pretty much turned me away from bothering with this game. FFXIV has issues that internal QA should have caught much before it goes out to public. While they are making strides in improving it, I think I'll wait for their beta phase to begin before touching this again. Maybe by then they won't expect you to plan your life around their schedule!
Oh, regarding gameplay... well, let's just say I agree fully with the many articles that are out saying how boring XIV is... for example: http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-05-14/final_fantasy_xiv_criticized_for_too_dull_combats_in_japan,1.shtml
Starcraft II
I understand that this beta has been going on for a while now? Seems like they are just adjusting unit balance and... well, so far gameplay has been flawless and actually fun! They do not have a tutorial, but it was fairly easy to jump right into things.
I think at this point, this feels more like... well... release the game already so we can play with everything else in the game! Maybe they should stop calling it "beta" and call it" Multiplayer trial"? Beta ends in 2 weeks, but supposedly they're going to open it up again after that. With a scheduled release date in July, this definitely felt like a beta.
Halo: Reach
This is a weird one... basically everyone who purchased Halo: ODST can participate in the Halo: Reach beta... However, the beta is only run for... 2 weeks? It really doesn't sound like they were looking to find show stopping issues or to do much tweaking in the game. It feels more like a way to get people to buy ODST, and as a teaser instead of actually a beta.
The short timeline for the beta meant to me that... well, I just never bothered with loading it up even though I had access to it.
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FFXIV Definate alpha, being in school for game design, I'm impressed with what they have for an alpha, but at the same time, I have to agree, releasing it to the public was a bit of mistake with the performance issue. Crashes I can understand if you have a bug report system to auto-send data on them, but performance really hinders one's ability to test a game.
Starcraft II: bored as hell with this game. It's too fast for my liking. To me it's like the Unreal Tournament of RTSs. There's no strategy left really. Basically build the biggest unit en-mass and destroy your enemy in 1 fell swoop or zerg the hell out of them at the beginning. So far, the longest game of SC2 I've played was 1 hour, and it only lasted that long cause I harvested all the resources before destroying the last enemy building. It's SC with better graphics on super fast mode. CoH is much more tactical.
Halo Reach: haven't played it. Why? it's Halo, they've milked the living f*** out of it... let it go already! At least final fantasy changes everything except for naming conventions and mount... basically things that make it another FF... though it still needs to end as they're rapidly going down hill.
Just my 2 cents.
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