While StarCraft II and the Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft are sure deals, a 2010 release for Diablo III was recently set in doubt, only to be now all but officially confirmed by VP of game design, Rob Pardo. “I think it’s safe to say that, yeah, [Diablo III] is not going to be out next year,” he told Techland.

“We always announce all of our games too early. We realize that and go, ‘You know what? Next time we’re not going to do that.’ And then we always fail at that. But I’d rather fail at that than fail at making the game great.”

Sad news, but those holding out any hope of playing the game next year should probably consider giving up right about now.

After being a tease with a closed beta, Cryptic has today announced the open beta dates for their upcoming ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ MMO; The expanded beta for Star Trek Online will kick off on January 12 and ends on January 26, a week before the game’s launch in early February, lasting exactly two weeks. Keys will be given out on a first come first serve basis on startrekonline.com, so anyone interested better keep an eye on it.

Cryptic also sent over the “Space Exploration” trailer above, which shows us some sights and ships blowing up.

Heroes Over Europe offers a vision of World War II filtered through old British comic books, patriotic wartime posters and chirpy Pathe newsreels about ‘our boys.’ It’s a welcoming approach, a presentational style that accounts for much of the game’s strength. But the ‘chocks away’ charm wears away all too quickly. What’s left is a game with a real dearth of ideas.

The sequel to 2005’s Heroes Over the Pacific, HOE transplants the air-based arcade action to a rough approximation of the Battle of Britain. So you’ll be zooming over London defending the houses of Parliament, dispatching vast squadrons of bombers and dog-fighting ‘ace pilots’ over the white cliffs of Dover. All in the name of seeing off those dastardly Nazi chaps.

The game’s central gimmick is the addition of ‘Ace-Kills,’ a feature best described as the air-combat equivalent of bullet-time. Get in close to an enemy and a gauge on your targeting reticule will charge, keep them in your sights for long enough it will eventually turn red - allowing you to click a button, zoom in and pick off vulnerable sections of enemy plane. Think of it as an air-to-air headshot.

The above video has been posted on YouTube displaying a hacker’s proof that there are hidden multiplayer modes on the Modern Warfare 2 game disk. There are three hidden game modes found in the video: VIP, Capture the Flag and Global Thermonuclear War, where the objective is to be the first team to capture a thermonuclear base before the other team and then blow everything up.

The hidden modes, if true, will likely be unlocked as downloadable content from Infinity Ward in the future. Seeing that the game modes are allegedly already on the MW2 game disk, it would be really sweet of IW not to charge for that DLC, but that’s unlikely. We’ll just have to wait and see how this turns out.

With Gears of War and Gears of War 2 each selling over 5 million copies worldwide, and Shadow Complex becoming the biggest selling single-player title in Xbox Live Arcade’s history this summer, it’s been pretty safe to assume that Epic’s moving forward with the franchises. And if a recent job listing is to be believed, that indeed appears to be the case.

The listing reveals that Microsoft is looking for a Lead Producer to join Microsoft Game Studios among whose responsibilities will be leading “the publishing side of games made by Epic,” helping lead the Gears of War and Shadow Complex “efforts” as well as leading, growing, and managing “a small team of producers across both Gears of War and Shadow Complex.”

So, yeah, we’ll be seeing more of those games.

It looks like the failure that is the Modern Warfare 2 boycott for the PC staged much in the same way as the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott continues to fall very short of whatever lofty goal legitimate boycotters had in mind. It was already bad enough when on launch day a majority of people in the Modern Warfare 2 boycott Steam group were playing the game, but now according to Infinity Ward the PC version of the game has already outsold the first Modern Warfare.

The news came from a post on the community forums by creative strategist Robert Bowling, “The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week. Making it the most successful PC version.” Unfortunately there were no official numbers revealed, but the fact that in the short amount of time it’s been out and that it’s already outselling the previous Modern Warfare, is impressive.

Some weeks ago, at the height of the dedicated server discussion sparked by Infinity Ward’s decision to go with IWNet instead, Aliens vs. Predator developer Rebellion’s senior producer David Brickley was asked whether or not the game would have dedicated servers. At the time, a clear answer was hard to come by, with the man finally saying that “running an operation like that is monumentally expensive”.

Today, a company rep shot over a message to set things straight, saying that Rebellion’s Jason Kingsley has confirmed support for dedicated servers. “Despite rumours, Rebellion has always been planning to support dedicated servers for AvP PC and we can now officially confirm that this is the case. Rebellion has always appreciated fan support. We’re really looking forward to the release of AvP as much as you guys are!,” the CEO says.

“Speculation over whether Rebellion developed AvP will support dedicated servers can now end!,” the rep adds.

We could have been fighting extraterrestrials and zombies in Modern Warfare 2’s story mode? Well, probably not. But the game’s scriptwriter Jesse Stern does say those ideas, among others, were thrown around when coming up with the story in order “to weed out the bad ideas.”

“We started kicking around anything and everything to weed out the bad ideas,” Stern said in a recent interview. “In the beginning we talked about having things in Modern Warfare 2 like outbreaks, viruses, chemical warfare, and even outlandish things such as aliens and the living dead … before we finally ended up with a more grounded version of the real world”.

There’s always room for Call of Duty: Alien Warfare? You heard it here first.

October 2009 was the biggest month yet for the PlayStation Store, SCEA has announced, pulling in more revenue than in any previous month during the console’s now three-year history in the US, with downloads up 60% from last year. To celebrate the three year mark, Sony also revealed that over 650 million pieces of content have been downloaded from the store, a feat accomplished by more than 31 million registered PSN accounts.

Following price cuts and the introduction of the slimmer PS3, October’s hardware sales in the US showed 70% growth when compared to last year, Sony says, making the PS3 the only console to see “significant growth” year on year.

For those ready to start planning their strategy for the retail madness that is Black Friday, GameStop’s offerings have been revealed at blackfday.com [PDF link]. The featured door busters for Nov. 27th include an Xbox 360 Elite bundle for $299.99 (comes with Pure, Lego Batman, and either Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or Bakugan Battle Brawlers) and a PS3 Slim bundle also for $299.99 (comes with LittleBigPlanet GOTY edition and God of War Collection).

There are quite a few other deals as well, such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, Tekken 6, Halo 3: ODST, and Left 4 Dead 2 for $39.99 each. While not as prevalent throughout the ad, the Wii sneaks in with a free Wii MotionPlus with purchase of Wii Sports Resort (still $49.99) and Dead Space Extraction for $19.99. The usual ‘buy 2 get 1 free’ deal on used games is also in place. Speaking of used games, there are a lot of other deals in the ad featuring pre-owned games (and some systems), so make sure you read the descriptions carefully if you want to tear through the cellophane yourself. And as always, get there early (doors open at 6 a.m.) if you want to get the deals you want.