I beat the demo with under two minutes left. Didn't blow me away like the more seminal RE entries (such as 4 and 7) have, but it impressed me in many ways, and it made me want the full game, so... mission accomplished?
You definitely lose something in terms of tension by removing the fixed camera angles. Some fans have been bitching about the camera change since RE4, and they weren't wrong, but it never really mattered because not only have the (better) games post-4 been designed for the over-the-shoulder camera and more action-packed gameplay, so has the horror. RE2's remake is kind of straddling the line there... the layout of the station is very close to the original game, but many things have been changed to keep it fresh and to make it work with the new camera system.
Overall, they made it all work pretty well... but unfortunately, as you're playing it you're comparing it to the original, and in some ways the original was a lot more scary or at least more tense. RE6 tried to return to a "true RE horror" experience with slow zombies, and while it's an unfairly maligned game considered on its own merits, results were mixed as a "survival/horror" game. RE2make does this a lot better, but I'm not going to say I was frightened by the enemies at any point during the demo.
I hope the full game takes a page from the REmake playbook and drastically alters stuff later on. You can tell this is made for fans of the original, which is good. But I have played RE2 through many times, and though it's been years since I last played it, this felt almost too familiar. Only two things in the demo surprised me (aside from how well it ran, how good it looked, and how competently-written the notes/dialogue were): the lack of an event I expected to happen, and one pretty effective, if predictable, cutscene. I want to be way more surprised by the developers' creativity in the real game.
Also lol timed demo.
Looking forward to playing RE2's remake. I've been waiting for this for a long time, RE2 has been my favorite in the series since it came out back when I was a kid in 1998.
Not sure if I should get the demo or wait for the full game and have it all be new to me.
If you're going to buy the full game for sure, I would skip the demo. This isn't like RE7 where the demo was an exclusive experience. It's just a small section towards the beginning of the game.