Well, in all fairness, 'proven netcode' was once unproven. They made their choices which at the time seemed logical based on the requirements of the game, however with the wonder that is hindsight we're able to see that they mad the wrong choices. They're working as hard as they can to fix it. I too can't play Demigod at all. I'm not American, and so the Proxy servers do not work for me. I have to wait for 1.01 for the regional logic to kick in. I don't have a large amount of upload - listed as 256kbps by my ISP - so with it's large bandwidth requirements Demigod is unplayable even for local connections until they reduce the ungodly amount of Bandwidth this game needs. This also happens in 1.01.
Demigod has seen easily the worst launch of a multiplayer centric title I've ever encountered, however Brad (Frogboy) is dead on when he says the progress they've made is leagues ahead of where they started. It's hard to believe that when your game is still broken, as is mine, and I believe me when I say I understand your frustration. I've bought three new game multiplayer games in the time from Demigod's release till now, and I've played three total, complete, non-broken matches of Demigod. Three. Each time a new fix is announced, it applies to everyone but me. Every time a new patch is released it fixes all the problems except the ones I have. However, we're closer to a working game than we were when we bought it, and I'm willing to give them more time to get it right. If your not, contact them for a refund. Best of luck either way.
