Why unfortunate? Because Firaxis has announced that the demo of the long-awaited Civilization V won't actually be released until the day the full game hits store shelves.

"The Civilization V playable demo release date is September 21st; the same day as the North American release date of the full game.

"The question many of you are probably asking now is “didn’t you say it would be available before the release date?” The answer to that question is yes, I did. At the time of that announcement, we expected to be able to get the demo out before the 21st, but unfortunately we weren’t able to finalize it in the timeframe we had initially planned, and for that we’re very sorry.

"However, we have managed to get it out the same day as the North American release. So for those of you who have been waiting to try out the demo before buying the game, you can still do that with enough time left to run out to the store (or purchase on Steam) and have the full game on the same day as everyone else."

Source: Firaxis