I never even played the demo. An internet friend told me about it and sent me some YouTube videos before the release. I bought it straight away.
I saw the video and then bought it without playing the demo. Even if the game sucked (it doesnt) i would've been supporting something i think has potential to be very very cool.
I just bought the Alpha literally withing 10 minutes of it coming out, didn't even bother with the Tech Demo, I knew it would be amazing.
I decided to skip the demo. When I saw that the mysterious "Drive" timer ended with an alpha release, I almost exploded with happiness. I bought the demo, threw my wallet at the screen, and proceeded to spend the night staring intently at my screen, repeatedly smashing the Covet and cruising around with the Grand Marshall. Best $30 I've spent in a long time.
I didn't buy the alpha right away. I bought it about 10 minutes after it was released. Since I was one of the first few people to download the tech demo I was able to install and play it for a bit before buying it. Since more people were downloading the game it took about 5 or so minutes for it to download.
I downloaded the tech demo, ran into random stuff a couple times and decided. This is absolutely worth the money plus some!
I played the demo for about 30mins while waiting to get access to a credit card. If I had the credit card at the time that the alpha came out, I wouldn't have played the demo at all.
Well I have a crappy laptop with only 2 gigs of ram so i downloaded the tech demo just to test it, crashed the D-15 for about 15 mins without lag and then i was like.. :O!!! I've waited years for this!!! AND NOW I CAN BUY IT!!! Then i EXPLODED with excitement!! and since that day... I've been driving this thing along the most beautiful coastline imaginable under a golden sunset whilst loosing control and smashing myself down a cliff and onto the solid rocks below. Then because the police AI have the IQ of a potato they follow me into my stony grave.
I bought the Alpha version as soon as humanly possible but played the tech-demo while waiting for it to finish downloading.
I played for about 20 minutes, then letting my father take over for about 10 (he got a bit motion sick and couldn't handle more without losing his dinner), he said it's me most realistic thing he's played.