Though it's not yet reflected on the ARMA II Website, the promised playable demo for the military shooter sequel from Bohemia Interactive Studios is now available. This forum post (thanks I Love Slippery Jim) lists download locations for the demo, and offers a tip to install the latest DirectX 9 Redistributable for those encountering a "Demo failed to launch, X3DAudio1_6.dll was not found" error. Here's word on the demo:

The fictional post-Soviet state of Chernarus provides the location for all the action in ArmA II and gamers will have the opportunity to explore its highland area in the demo version, along with the small Chernarussian island of Utes. More specifically, the ‘boot camp’ missions are all available which act as tutorials for the game’s many disciplines including helicopter flight, unit command and base construction. In addition, the full single player mission ‘Trial By Fire’ from the main campaign and the multiplayer map ‘Mini Warfare’, allowing ArmA fans the chance to trial three multiplayer modes, are included in the demo. A selection of over 20 vehicles, over 25 weapons and various soldier and civilian models will be included, although these represent only a fraction of those available in the retail version.

“Distilling ArmA II’s gameplay into a trial sized package has been a bit of a challenge because there is just so much in there that we want to show off,” commented Mark Allen, European Communications Manager for 505 Games. “In the end we’ve decided to be pretty generous, there are five types of rocket launcher in there for starters!”