So I was at Gamestop because I have no choice but to preorder there if I want to hang out with my friends at the midnight release and be able to play with them immediately after the midnight release. My problem is I made the mistake of not preordering the hardened edition so I'm forced to pay the extra 10 dollars for elite. My thing is I really don't want elite that badly, and I'm not sure all of the map packs will even be that great.

Oh, and did I mention the asshole worker at gamestop trying to sell me a preorder of Elite? Well the way he told me about it was that they have "announced" 9 different map packs of 2 maps each. All of those map packs will be 10 to 15 bucks each. Am I missing something here? Did they announce this? Honestly I don't remember hearing anything like that. I thought they said that there would be 4 or 5 map packs just like black ops had.

I'm just rambling but...should I bother getting Elite? And are there really going to be 90 dollars worth of map packs, but only a total of 18 maps?

Wait- why is the regular edition out of the question? Collector's editions are such a waste of money. Is it really so bad to just buy the game?

@XII_Sniper said:

Wait- why is the regular edition out of the question? Collector's editions are such a waste of money. Is it really so bad to just buy the game?

Because if you purchase the hardened edition you get Call of Duty Elite for free. They aren't doing a mega edition this year.

hxcaleb, if you weren't such a hardcore fan I'd recommend you wait until the day the game releases. I'd imagine there will be a couple extra hardened editions out there for purchase.

@hxcaleb said:

...the asshole worker at gamestop trying to sell me a preorder of Elite? Well the way he told me about it was that they have "announced" 9 different map packs of 2 maps each. All of those map packs will be 10 to 15 bucks each. Am I missing something here?

Like many gamestop employees, he was talking out of his ass about something that he didn't know about. What IS known about the DLC:

There will be a 9 month release schedule for MW3 DLC

There will be 20 pieces of DLC

Starting in December, at least one of those 20 DLC pieces will be released to Elite Premium subscribers every month. It could be a new map, spec ops mission, game mode, or even a single player mission. The vast majority will likely be multiplayer maps, though.

After four or or five pieces of DLC have been released for Premium Elite subscribers for a while, they'll be put into a DLC package and released to anyone who wishes to buy that DLC package.

As long as you pay for one year of Elite Premium, you get to keep all of the DLC forever.

@hxcaleb said:

My problem is I made the mistake of not preordering the hardened edition so I'm forced to pay the extra 10 dollars for elite. My thing is I really don't want elite that badly, and I'm not sure all of the map packs will even be that great.

I'm just rambling but...should I bother getting Elite? And are there really going to be 90 dollars worth of map packs, but only a total of 18 maps?

You should get Elite Premium if you are fairly sure that you'll probably be playing MW3 for the next nine months, and you like the idea of always having something new to play. You shouldn't get Elite if you're not really that big a fan of COD, and you doubt that you'll be playing MW3 anywhere near nine months from now, or you would like to wait and see what DLC is actually released before committing to it.

Unless you really want the founder status rewards, you can always buy a Premium subscription later.

@Barrock said:

@XII_Sniper said:

Wait- why is the regular edition out of the question? Collector's editions are such a waste of money. Is it really so bad to just buy the game?

Because if you purchase the hardened edition you get Call of Duty Elite for free. They aren't doing a mega edition this year.

hxcaleb, if you weren't such a hardcore fan I'd recommend you wait until the day the game releases. I'd imagine there will be a couple extra hardened editions out there for purchase.

Oooh that's not a bad deal then.

Either way, don't believe gamestop people they have personal sales quotas to fill, and I very much doubt they're above lying. Some poor woman resorted to telling me people are returning Uncharted 3 discs because they're "buggy", and thus I should get the 3$ disk guarantee. Clearly she was at the end of a shift and desperate. But come on.... blu-rays are pretty indestructible compared to DVDs. They don't scratch as easily.

I'd just pick it up on release day after the midnight release, they'll have copies. Midnight releases are silly anyway, you're playing the game at 12:30 at the earliest, then you get an hour in? Seems like a waste of effort.