In terms of technology, DirectX 11 isn't the API defining, behind-the-scenes reboot that DirectX 10 was. It's an incremental update, much in the same way that Windows 7 is an update of Vista. At the end of the day, DirectX 11 is basically just DirectX 10 with a bunch of new features stuck on. However, we'd speculate that DirectX 11 should have a much larger impact on the end-user experience than DirectX 10 did because it brings several new features to the table that will make creating advanced graphical effects seldom seen in past games, much easier.

Some critics have said that Windows 7 is everything that Vista was supposed to be. But is DirectX 11 everything DirectX 10 was hyped up to be? We couldn't let such a loaded question go unanswered, even if we did pose it ourselves. Now that DirectX 11 hardware is readily available and compatible games are on the shelves, it's high time we took stock of what DirectX 11 has to offer to the end-user...