From what I've read it sounds like charging for a beta.
Almost always you got a few levels for free/shareware as demo.
If you buy the game, you get the rest.
A model known as the Apogee model.
With this new EA model I expect to get a discount if I buy such a beta/demo, test it, give feedback and than buy the full game either with or without those levels in it.
Gamasutra has an article about this with some input from Jeff Brown, EA's vice president of corporate communications.
He says amongst others:
None of the proposals call for charging consumers for traditionally free game demos.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Personally I do think there's a market for short games with a few hours of gameplay which are sold for a small price.

IF the content is discrete and non-essential to the main story but serves to add flavour then it's cool. If it's the more traditional demo with the first level of the game then it's complete shit
Yeah but EA seem OK with PC DLC (acronym hell there, or AH for short) so this is the kind of thing where I suspect they'd do it for all platforms

Well, in their defense it's more like a NGHTMR

This is exactly what ticks me off too. If shit breaks, the game doesn't work, they can just go "well, duh, it's a beta. we'll fix it for the release I PROMISE (also you have to pay an additional $59.99 for the release)".
It's so mind-boggingly greedy. Not only can they release butchered products under the umbrella that it's a "demo", they plan to charge you for it too. And you know what? There are plenty of people around the world who are stupid enough to bite, hook and string.

Honestly, public betas are just demos with "Well, we might fix that before release". They just use the word "beta" because it makes people want to try it because they can pretend they are involved in game development.

They'll never see a penny from me for a demo. That's a horrible idea and they should be ashamed they even considered the concept.
Heck I rarely even try demos as it is, because I get a really good sense of whether I'll like a game just by watching videos on youtube and browsing faqs that detail play mechanics, screen shots, and reviews. My intuition has never steered me wrong yet.

You know, I'm close to just saying "fuck you" to all these greedy publishers and just buying indie games. I'm completely fed up with all these money schemes which end up hurting the consumer.
I mean, take a look at the crap they pulled over the past 5 years:
a) product placement in games - fairly benign
b) in-game adverts - still fairly benign and good for racing games but not when it doesn't fit the game's world
c) Starforce - destroys DVD drives, root drivers, causes endless range of other problems
d) "premium subscriptions" which lets you access extra content inside a game even though you paid full price for a game (Hellgate London)
e) tying your cd key to an account meaning you can't resell the game anymore or you lose multiplayer
f) games getting funds (read: bribes) from big hardware companies like Nvidia to make the game run faster on their hardware at the expense of other brands
g) limited online activations
h) needing to be online at all times to play a game
i) downloadable content which is 20% of the game's full price with only 5% of the game's content (and I'm being generous here)
j) pre-order boxes which you pay a premium for to get some "exclusive items"
k) digital versions of the game costing more than retail versions despite much MUCH lower overheads
l) the reducing of a game's physical worth by moving any extra items into a "Limited Edition" while the normal version is nothing more but a DVD box, thin manual and DVD.
and now ...
m) asking money for "demos" just so they'd know whether the full game would sell well without even considering to let you "upgrade" to the full version.
No really, I'm getting sick and tired of this industry. It's becoming a nightmare to keep track of all my game accounts. When I wanted to play Guildwars, I discovered they had an extra security question in check asking me the name of a character which I had made 4 years ago. Took me two days before support would help me out!
I think I'd be perfectly happy just playing indie games and sticking to retro games. I still got over 1000 games to properly play.

That's another reason to add to my page long of "Why I absolutely hate EA since 2003" list.

If you don't like it; don't buy it. It's as simple as that.
They did a similar thing with Spore, to a certain extent (the character creator). IIRC, buying that knocked ~ $10 off the purchase price of the full game. So there's no need to jump to the assumption that they will charge full price for the game after you've purchased the add-on.

The point being?

Erm from what I read it's NOT extra content but just content from the full game so if you paid for this, you'll need to pay again for the full game including the part you already paid for. In the end you'll pay $60 for a game instead of $50 in other words it's a money scam.

Like Spore's Creature Creator Retail box?
My friend actually bought that thinking it's the full game for SPORE, only to buy the full game later.

Damn, I was too late. I was just about to bring up the Spore Creature Creator. See, charging customers for demos is not a new idea EA's suddenly had. They already did it long ago.