Bad Company 2 is set to be released in stores tomorrow, and several game retailers are running a midnight launch, including GameStop, where over 1,300 stores are participating in a midnight launch event which will include BC2 tournaments as well. The reviews of the game are slowly beginning to appear as well, and we’ll have a full roundup of all reviews here very soon!

The short, 30-sec ad you see above will be appearing on a TV channel near you very soon (if it already hasn’t). DICE plans to release several different ads, and we’ll post them here as soon as we got ‘em. Bad Company 2 is slated for release in just one week.

EA has announced that day-one DLC will be available for Bad Company 2, which will include two new maps, a Rush map called Nelson Bay and a Conquest map called Laguna Alta. If you buy the game used, you’ll have to spend $5 on the two maps. A second map pack is planned for March, which will likewise be free to those who bought the game.

DICE has put together a quick walk through trailer of Bad Company 2 for the PC, where everything we already knew is explained, however, this time, we get a first look at a brand new multiplayer map as well.

EA’s Battlefield Veteran system has been used for the past few Battlefield games, and now those who register with it can receive a free unlock for Bad Company 2 — the classic WW2 rifle M1. You can register on veteran.battlefield.com, however, you’ll need a veteran rank of 1 or more to get the rifle — which means you need to register more than 1 Battlefield game.

EA has proudly announced that the Bad Company 2 demo which was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 just two weeks ago, has been downloaded over 3.5 million times. Here are some stats from the demo:

• 3.5 Million downloads
• 500 Million kills
• 100 Million vehicle kills
• 15 Million knife kills
• 30 Million destroyed vehicles
• 10 Million head shots
• 25 Million revives

According to DICE, the demo runs only until February 25, after which the game servers will be shut down and all focus will be towards the full game, which is scheduled for a March 2 release.

The PC beta client has been updated, and according to DICE, quite a few improvements have been made, chief of which centers around reducing lag (which a lot of players have complained about, and which reflects our own experience with the beta). The full list of changes, according to DICE:

• Reduced input “lag”
  On machines where the CPU would out-run the GPU, sometimes the GPU would queue up several frames’ worth of rendering commands.
  This could lead to the game having a high framerate, but input still feeling very sluggish.

Now there’s a limiter on how many frames the CPU is allowed to be “ahead” of the GPU.
Control this setting via Settings.ini. Default setting: RenderAheadLimit=2

• Performance optimizations with biggest improvements on dual-core machines
• Fixed black “masks”
  • The soot on buildings with holes in them had a bugged renderpath. We switched that over to a more well-tested renderpath.
• Improved hit-detection
  • We’ve gone through the hit detection logic, and client+server will now give more consistent results.
• Fix for some “rubberbanding” issues
  • C4 should stay attached to vehicles and not rubberband around
• Reduced spikes/dips in framerate
• Various fixes for alt+tab related CTD on Dx9
• More fixes for random CTD on Dx9
• Fix for crash when you’re in a vehicle that gets destroyed

EA is running a pretty good promotion deal on its EA Store downloadable service, where players who pre-order Bad Company 2 will be getting Battlefield 2142 for free.

Pre-orders also give access to the Beta, however, the beta only runs for another week, so you should definitely pre-order now if you wanna check out the PC beta — but honestly, there’s no reason to do so, the game will be out in just 10 days.

You can check out all the details at the EA Store here.

EA has been experimenting with ways of getting gamers to buy new instead of used games, one of the perks seems to be DLC, where gamers who buy a new boxed version of the game will have a VIP code which gives them access to downloadable content throughout the life of the game.

This has now been confirmed for Bad Company 2 as well, as the game will ship with a such VIP code, and DLC will be available from day one, with more to come later on. The VIP code is connected to your EA account.

A simply genius video showing all the Modern Warfare 2 junkies how to play a real FPS. Enough said.