The double-bladed sabre would be better against multiple normal (i.e. non-sabre wielding) opponents, but not really against two swordfighters, because much of the advantage you would imagine you would get is countered when you notice that once you use one blade the other blade is committed to position and useless, and it is not very much faster to move the other blade into position than it is to move the single blade into position anyway.
It DID look damn good though.
However, if Academy gets low marks, I don't think it will have a GREAT deal to do with the technical quality of the swordfighting (which was already very arcadey- just watch a big deathmatch with sabres, and the nonsense chaos fest it is, and you get the idea- but more because they might not have moved on much from Outcast, nor improved on its rather dodgy levels it had in areas- and level design is crucial to this kinda thing. Still, let's hope the final version improves.