I downloaded EA's skate yesterday. Their whole 'it's real' pitch is a load. It's not like real skating. That's not to say it's a bad game or anything, just that it's a misleading campaign. The best description I can give it is that it's like using one of those Tech-Deck fingerboards.
I really like the Tony Hawk games because I don't play them to skate (I skate to skate). They're not realistic at all, but that's half the point.

I'll admit for the first two play throughs of the demo I sucked the ass. I sucked it harder than any man should suck an ass. I eventually got better. I found that originally I was holding down A while doing tricks for no reason. I don't know why, but that's where my thumb goes, and that makes it impossible to do anything but spin in the air.

Compared to the Tony Hawk games it has one major advantage when appealing to people who actually skate, the tricks string together right. You wont be doing a 900 kickflip then landing in a manual. Spinning is easy, a kickflip is easy and landing in a manual is easy, but stringing them together just doesn't work.
This creates a very cool look. As much as Tony Hawk games let you pull off the coolest tricks, these tricks look like stuff you could pull off.

Speaking of replays the game has a very nice 'video' mode. Basically when you're skating around no matter what you do you're recording. You can then pause and go to a video editor and edit up your own video of your last string of tricks. You can move the camera around and do all sorts neat effects. Slowing, speeding, filters, etc. You can then save it and send it around. So far I've made some pretty cool looking videos (even if the tricks in them are just nollies and manuals).

Grinding is very interesting. I'm used to just grinding until I lose balance but in skate you lose momentum while grinding (as you should). So speed coming into the grind is very important. The other important aspect is the angle you're coming in from. It took me a while to get used to the fact you can't come at a rail from 90 degrees and expect it to work.

I'm really happy with manuals. Just like real life they're a lot of fun. They're easy to pull off, but combining them with other tricks is pretty hard. You don't really have to try to balance them, but landing in the sweet spot to initiate the manual is pretty hard. When you ollie you're flicking the right analog stick, but when you manual you need to be a lot softer and get it in just the right spot. Two or three tries in a row will have you pulling them off everytime, but after you've stopped and come back it's hard again.

One thing I'm curious about is a trick someone pulls off in the movie at the end of the demo. A skater kickflips, and while his board is spinning he goes over a rail and the board goes under. My friend and I spent about half an hour trying to do this and couldn't pull it off. Has anyone been able to pull that off in the demo?

I think for my friends and I this will end up more of a chatroom than a game, provided there's a free roam online mode where we don't have to compete. If you could get off your board and just walk around casually it'd be sweet. Maybe sit down and lock your view onto another player. Hopefully they'll include the ability to stream music to the other players.