thoughts about the venice demo:

the water shader is hl2 quality, though it is not transparent which should be no problem in dx9, should it?
the overall fps is really bad, it jumps between 29 and 40 @ athlon 64 dula core, 2 gig ram and gf 7600 gt. for just blocks and one shader surface, it's awkward. if the level was crowded with detail, ok, but it looks like it's been vacuum cleaned just before the player arrives.
the overall lighting is sterile and highly unimpressive. i felt reminded on the tomb raider 2 venice level:



except for the water shader and the lowres textures, it doesn't differ much, esp. regarding the lighting.
the weather effect is a really nice idea.