Posted at the Total War Forums by the player who played the demo.

Quote Originally Posted by 753
The Demo Battles were very very easy to win and i have to say the combat is pretty fast , even infantry combat.....

....Mark Sutherns , Marketing Manager from Creative Assembly said for him personally Total Realism is very impressive but impossible to do it by themselves because its pointed to hardcore players and CA wants to reach all types of players but it's are great work that you did and he hopes that the fans of Medieval 2 will do something for this game aswell.
I think this says it all. Creative Assembly is continuing down the path they started with RTW. If that doesn't please you, you must be a hardcore player. Wait for the SP mods a year or so down the road, and hope at least one of them improves the gameplay enough that you find it worth playing. For multiplayer, I'm putting my effort into Samurai Wars.