I downloaded the Fight Night 3 demo on my 360 this evening, expecting to be wowed.  And wowed I was, but by two different things.

First, the graphics and presentation are amazing.  There are no health meters, no on-screen data at all, just two boxers...boxing.  It looks absolutely incredible.  It's a level of realism I had not yet experienced.

Second, I could not figure out how to play to save my life.  My character pretty much just stood there and got the crap beat out of him.  Several of the buttons appeared to all have the same function... the "brush some dust off your opponent by moving your glove in the general direction of your opponent, but without applying any force whatsoever" function.  Seriously, I thought something was wrong with my controller, so I fired up a second one.  Nothing I tried did the slightest amount of damage.  So, I looked for the control explanation.  Ahh, the right stick is the "total punch control".  That sounds good, right.  So, I tried just about everything I could think of to control my punches using the stick, but still nothing.

Can someone explain how that's supposed to work?  I'm sure their control mechanism is innovating, but I just can't figure it out. Does EA really expect people to be amazing by a game who's controls are so unintuitive?

[UPDATE:]  After some more playing, I've figured out a fairly successful strategy.  I was missing the fact that holding the left trigger let you "dodge" with your body with the left stick, while the right trigger allows you to block with the right stick.  I never got the right stick to do any successful punching.  But, using combinations of jabs and hooks, you can get pretty solid punches, especially when coming from a dodge.  I've gotten to where I can knock the other guy down without much trouble.  I doubt I will buy the game when it comes out, unless my friends get into it. I don't really like boxing that much.