hey! It was fun... the controls sucked on PC but it was fun!
that said I don't think there is a way to go activate hard mode without beating it. If you did you'd probably be to low a level to deal with it.
Well, in both games you can start a hard game with default statistics, meaning they start you at level 20 or something (at least in M:UA, they do)
that's what I mean... the first run through is so that you get used to the characters. IIRC when you do hard mode it's basically new game +.
Right, but there has to be some setting in the files, like an .ini or .cfg file that has the variable that determines whether or not Hard Mode is unlocked. Then, if you select hard mode, you start at level 20 (default). This way, at least you have all the powers to begin with and it's a bit more challenging. I've played them both before, but wanted a time-kill game, but wanted to skip the boring beginning of only having 1-2 powers.