Atleast you’re still PLAYING the game. The level 1 CPU players were to practice for the new comers to the game. Never played Professor Layton, but I take it the Hint Coins are HINTS, not “We’re going to complete this puzzle for you” Coins. As for the Guitar Hero one, I hadn’t heard of it and that IS pretty bad so I’ll give you that.
This feature isn’t making the game easier, its the game playing itself.
Games with cheat codes don’t tell you these codes. They don’t give you these features, unless you somehow figure them out yourself, you’re going to have to go on the internet and look these up, then input the code.
Imagine Sonic Team making a Sonic game 2d with 3d graphics (Basically what everyone has been asking for), but allowing you to let the game play itself at the hardest parts. That takes the challenge away. You could say you could just not use it, but its the simple fact that they added it to try to appeal to the “Casual Gamers”

For the cheat codes, I don’t see how having to look them up makes any difference. It’s still a feature that programmers put into the game which enables you to make the game easier. More importantly, it’s still an option. Just like you don’t have to type in the cheat codes, you don’t have to use Demo Play.
As far as the Sonic game idea, sure it takes the challenge away, but like you said, don’t use it. I’m not going to complain about a feature that’s not meant for me if it means somebody else can enjoy themselves. Does the fact that your grandmom or a 3 year old can see the end of the game make it any less satisfying when YOU beat the challenging parts? It certainly wouldn’t bother me. Really, by saying this feature should not exist, you’re in a way saying that other people don’t deserve the enjoyment you get out of games if they aren’t good enough to play them, and that just seems selfish to me. In fact, I can use myself with your own example. I’m not a huge fan of Sonic games, partially because I like being able to explore areas at my leisure instead of blazing through and hoping I don’t miss some nook or cranny, but in part because my reaction times aren’t that great. I don’t really enjoy when I’m playing and all of a sudden spikes pop up or something and I have like half a second to get out of the way and I can’t react in time. Something like this could let me watch the level, then I would be more prepared for stuff like that. Are you saying that since you are good at Sonic games, there shouldn’t be an option to accomodate people of my skill level because YOU don’t want that feature?
As another example, imagine they remade OoT, often picked as the best game of all time, with the only change being the addition of Demo Play. Does the game all of a sudden suck now?
Also, I thought of this regarding an earlier point: Obilink mentioned one way to get through if you were stuck was to watch a video on YouTube. OK, so why can’t you do that with this? Save, turn on Demo Play, watch the game do it for you, then reload the save and do it yourself. It saves the time of having to search for a video of the part you’re stuck at. Why is it all of a sudden bad when it’s actually in the game itself?
The one point I will concede is if it ends up taking up so much disc space that they say “We would’ve put more features in, but Demo Play took up the room, so they aren’t there.” That would be a problem, but since we have no idea if that will be an issue or not it’s not something to complain about yet.
PS FYI, the Guitar Hero thing I mentioned is Beginner mode, where instead of notes, bars come towards you and you just have to strum and hit the bar at the right time; you can hit whatever buttons you want. Also, HOLY CRAP that’s a long post. I really started to ramble there a bit, sorry.

Wow, for a guy who doesnt like long comments, Im making long ones. Maybe its just my love for a good debate.

You were talking about saying that everyone shold be able to enjoy games, which I guess I agree with, which is contradicting to what i said about hating with a pealing to the Casual Gamer. The problem is that the answer to allowing all people to play games isnt allowing to skip whole parts, the answer is making and easier mode. I’ll be honest, I suck at a lot of games. I look on GameFAQs if I need help on a part. But I still like the challenge and if I do go to look up how to do it I would still want to complete the level, so if another part similar comes up I wont have to look it up again. Now the saving then seeing the demo play then loading the save would make the feature better. But it shouldnt take over playing the section in my opinion. I dont know if im the only one who thinks this way, but what make games good are the challenges. Here’s another thing, maybe the problem is the fact taht in the 3D Mario games, theres free roaming which means that sometimes you can go to the harder levels first. Level progression is another thing that makes games good, because then by going from easy to hard you know what to do. I dont even know if that last sentence made sense, but hey, what im basically trying to say is that you should still play it, not the game playing it. Ignore the spelling mistakes, I’m too lazy to go back and fix them. Just try to find out the words

Oh yeah, and I got an internal server error

*grabs torches and pitchforks*

Oh my…

*runs for the hills*