Yeah, the Surface is what it's all about. Win8 makes sense that way.
On the desktop it technically works but it's inefficient compared to traditional Windows. It feels like I'm being forced to use the "shell experience" and I'm being goaded away from accessing the hard drive directly, much like an iOS device or Windows Phone.
In Win8 they've made it more difficult to just go to the drive and access folders; it's far from impossible but certainly takes some extra unnecessary steps. From a "work" perspective, Win8 slows me down. The simplicity of clicking Start, then "Computer" to access my drives is now replaced by waiting for the Start screen to come (about 1 second) but also dependant on my having placed a manual shortcut to My Computer. Alternatively, I could gesture my mouse to he top-right or bottom-right corner, then highlight Devices and let them display in the sidebar. I'll admit a lot of the changes can remedied by an adjustment in habits, but after nearly 15 years of pressing the START button to get to my folders or various tools it's tough to break the habit. I keep involuntarily bringing up the Start screen.
I mean, yes it is more organized but it's also an entire screen. Even in Win7 I rarely ever click on "All Programs" most of the functions I use are on that handy little Start menu that pops up when I click Start. I don't require a full transition animation, then an entire screen to advertise all the wonders of Windows 8 just to access my apps. I would be perfectly fine without it.
In my relatively brief experience with Win8, I'm starting to feel that the Start screen would have actually been much better as a desktop background. Keep the Win7 desktop as it is but now I have an interactive background that I can customize to work with my desktop experience. That makes sense to me. Not a disjointed, independent screen that feels more like an intrusion on my activities.
Anyway, I've tested gaming in Win8 and while games do perform well there is no integration at all with the built-in Games app. Apparently that only works with "Games For Windows Live" games. Battlefield 3 runs smoothly, and setting up a shortcut to it on the Start screen was automatic. Once I run the Start screen automatically goes away and the desktop IE loads up Battlelog. It will always load up desktop IE and not Metro IE since the latter apparently is not compatible with all IE add-ons. Certainly a noteworthy shortcoming.
Oh, and one more irritation. In Metro, you can't just close an app when you're done using it. You have to switch away and then manually close it from the tab selection by right-clicking on it and then closing it. I get why this is ok for tablets but for desktops we are the minimize or close culture. Having all apps running in fullscreen at all times is redundant to us desktoppers.
I will have to run some performance tests to gauge game performance and see the effects of having several Metro apps just sitting in the background.
The more I dig, the more I find stuff to dislike about Win8. I do actually like the Start screen, just not for a desktop. It is smooth and intuitive but it's like navigating through Windows Media Centre. Actually, that is a pretty good analogy for the UI experience. Seriously, if you have WMC on, load it up in fullscreen and use it with a mouse. It works but it will feel bulky. The Start screen is certainly smoother but exhibits a very similar "bulky" experience. Simply, it was not designed with the mouse in mind as the primary interaction method.
