indeed, it strikes me as odd. Maybe it's just that the visual style of Metro isn't suited to being presented as a screenshot, but to me it looks like a simple mockup, there's no "gorgeous" about it. Functional though.

It occurs to me that the Metro theme really is that ugly. When I saw the new Windows logo, I thought something similar to your reaction. This isn't looking good for Microsoft :(

Try using a WP device. Seriously. The Metro theme is anything but ugly. Minimalist, perhaps- and maybe that isn't your style- but it isn't ugly. I would choose it over Apple's "making your address book look like a leather-bound book" approach any day.

Metro is much more than a theme. It's a design philosophy and a couple of screenshots cannot capture it.

You really need to use it to understand it.

Here's some indepth material on it:

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/493

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/487

I looked at the screenshots, then tried the demo and.. I'm wondering if they're trying to make the web look like it did in the 90's. Did anyone else have a reaction like that?

You could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's just the fact that they're saved as gif images for no obvious reason that's making them look less clean. But that fact alone (and the URLs for the images) just underlines Microsoft not getting the web at an institutional scale.

(I don't think a 256 colour gif would actually be that bad since it's mostly monochrome, but they appear to have dithered the greys while at the same time having a rainbow of unused colours in the palette.)

edit: actually only the red one is a gif, but only the rightmost one is both a png and links to a larger image (like the .gif does) rather than the exact same image. I think the text looks better (the phone case certainly does) but it might just be because it's white on black instead of vice-versa.

It looks fine to me. "Gorgeous" is a bit of a stretch, but so is "terrible."

I'm assuming they mean it's beautiful in the sense that the css they crafted manages to make it look very close to the wp7 metro controls. Those screens aren't all that sexy I will agree. Here's possibly a better example of a metro app: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd5BVkI3RzI

I had an identical reaction -- if I didn't know better I would have thought the lead in "The theme looks just gorgeous, doesn’t it?" was sarcastic.

I honestly don't get Metro, or the love of it, though I know that taste for such things are entirely subjective. A ridiculous low data density, elements not conforming to usability / aesthetics relative to their container (the whole giant text covering multiple viewports thing), a mishmash of contrasting colour tiles. It really, really isn't my thing. I hear it sells to people like the Woz, but in my opinion it's just a terrible interface that is heralded purely because few have used it in any functional way.

Have you used it in a functional way?

I have, and I genuinely think the interface is great, but that third party developers often get it wrong (resulting in the low data density you mention). There shouldn't be any mish-mash of contrasting colour- WP has one highlight color, along with the black and white. The giant text covering viewports is an indication that you can swipe left or right to see additional views- there isn't a parallel in iOS so if you haven't experienced it then it does look strange.

I went to a presentation on Metro design and I think it looks very nice indeed. The clean looks of the interface and the high emphasis on typography and positioning appeals to me more than the skeuomorphic designs of certain iOS apps. The presenter (a guy called Shane Morris) covered quite a few aspects of the ideas behind Metro and I have to say MS is being quite bold about the whole thing (whether they deliberately decided to reinvent the desktop or not).

Functionally, virtually no major apps have been converted to a Metro design, and we'll probably be working in traditional mode for most serious productivity tasks for some time. It remains to be seen if the Metro approach will fit more complicated programs with many, many functions. Nonetheless, I give MS props for taking a big leap with desktop design, whether it pans out for them or not.