Valve is slowly ramping up the media blitz as the release date for Left 4 Dead, their zombie shooting action title, is approaching. The game should be out on November 18, after several delays earlier in the year, and the company is saying that it plans to release a demo so that potential gamers can see what the experience is all about.

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve and acting president, declared that “Every time someone plays Left 4 Dead, we witness the most overwhelmingly positive reaction that we've seen from any of our games. This gives us tremendous confidence in the product and why we've taken the game on the road, produced this pre-launch demo, and invested more advertising dollars on the title than any prior release from Valve”. Those advertising dollars amount to more than 10 million, according to some reports.

The pre-launch demo will be coming in two different flavors, or rather on two different dates. Those who have already pre-ordered Left 4 Dead will get a chance to play the single player and the multiplayer modes of the game on November 6, on both the PC and the Xbox 360. If getting a game before the release date is not your thing, you will have to wait until November 11 in order to play the demo. Until November 18, both classes of users will be able to play in multiplayer, with the servers being reseted once the game is officially out.

It seems a bit weird to first launch a demo for those who have already ordered the game before release. After all, the purpose of a demo is to show off a game so interesting and well put together in order to attract more buyers. But Valve is pretty much rewarding those who pre-order thinking that the delay will not affect other potential customers.