Two weeks ago it was announced that Xbox Live Silver members could get free Gold access by downloading the 360 demo of the hotly anticipated Mass Effect 3. Gold access is supposed to last until the game’s release on March 6.  As of right now, it’s not working.

I decided to test that out last night and created a free Xbox Live account. Since I already had the demo downloaded, I booted it up and was met with a fantastic message telling me to upgrade to Xbox Live Gold. This may have to do with the fact that the multiplayer is currently locked for all non-Battlefield 3 players. You cannot even log into EA’s servers. Everyone else should be given access on Friday the 17th. I will test it again then.

I encourage everyone to give the demo a shot. It’s available for download on all three major platforms and weighs in around 2gb. Check out the PC and Xbox version  here and here. I my opinion, it’s quite good.