Well, I honestly disagree already about the part with the characters. Unless the demo features the best scenes of the game, the characters are far away from being terrible.
That's true. They may not be The Last of Us quality, but there is no way they can be as bad as the characters in the new Tomb Raider, for example.
Also, it seems that David Cage has finally created a good female protagonist. I thought Madison was poor, but Carla was pretty good until she became a necrophiliac.