Call of Duty: Black Ops Preloads

Steam and Direct2Drive each are offering preloads of Call of Duty: Black Ops for customers who have preordered or pre-purchased the military shooter sequel (Direct2Drive is also offering an additional 20% off any other Call of Duty game). The Direct2Drive page says has this to say about when the game will unlock: "Current Release Date: November 9th, 2010 at 7AM PST." For its part, the Steam page currently says: "This game will unlock in approximately 14 hours," which would seem to be about 10:00 am tomorrow morning, but according to what an Activison rep told Shacknews, store-bought copies can be unlocked as soon as they are purchased, even though they use Steam as well.